


The Rising

by Beth_Mac



Series: Somebody's Hero [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brother's Day 2018, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Gen, Parent Phil Coulson, read the trigger warnings, they're in the work notes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-23
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-05-10 09:18:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14734256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beth_Mac/pseuds/Beth_Mac
Summary: Because Leo Valdez was adopted at the age of ten, and the world is just a little bit better.





	1. what you could be

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Agent Valdez](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/383072) by BabyBird101. 



> Trigger Warnings: Past child abuse, past starvation, PTSD in a child, depiction of recovery from mental trauma (from an outside POV), depictions of violence, depictions of physical trauma, child characters as soldiers, depiction of recovery from child abuse, on-screen panic attack, implicit racism, canon temporary major character death. 
> 
> Content Warnings: A lot of swearing, much more than my other fics. 
> 
> Disclaimers:  
> 1\. Any potrayal of real-life public figures is not meant to reflect on the actual person.  
> 2\. I am not, in any way, shape, or form, of Native descent. I've done my best to present all Native and Mestizo/mixed-race characters, and Native American and Mesoamerican mythology, as accurately and respectfully as possible. If I screwed up somewhere, please correct me, especially Cherokee and Zapotec readers. 
> 
> As I don't have an online brother-figure to gift this to, this is dedicated to my real-life honorary brother, Sev.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title: "You never know what you could be, if not for the right people," from a now-deleted fanfic by [Lex Fowler](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/4038213/Lex-Fowler). (Which sucks, because that was a really good fic and a really good series. I'm just glad I saved the quote.)
> 
> Brother's Day is on the 24th, but since this wound up being multi-chapter (it's almost at 17,000 words and I don't know how), I'm posting Chapter One now. 
> 
> I don't know—yet—how many chapters this will have. I'm waffling between three and five. (I already have most of the major scenes written, I just need to string them together.)
> 
> Quick reminder: I've rewritten the ending to She's Somebody's Hero. The original ending is [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14608050/chapters/33763281).

**2006**

It's raining. He can hear it hitting the window. He's not sure this apartment is better than the storm outside. 

"I have to get up early tomorrow morning. You can sleep in if you want, but I'd like you to be up by nine—nah, let's make it nine-thirty. Is that all right?" Mr. Coulson asks. 

Leo's not sure why he keeps asking questions, but it's not like Leo has to answer, right? "That's okay." 

"Do you want to shower now, or in the morning?" 

"I can shower now." He keeps his voice soft and unassuming. 

Mr. Coulson is still working on his shoes. "Then in that case, I'll change into night clothes now—" the shoe finally slips off his foot "—and then you can have the shower." 

"Okay." 

Once he's alone under the hot water, Leo has a chance to contemplate just how _bad_ this situation is. Sure, Mr. Coulson is nice to him _now_ , but what about tomorrow morning? What about the days after that? 

_How many ways can I escape?_

* * *

"—no way I'm making him go back!" Leo pulls the covers up over his head instinctively, heart suddenly pounding. 

He can't hear the response, so he chances climbing out of bed and creeping to the kitchen door. Mr. Coulson is pacing the floor, probably on the phone with someone. He's definitely angry, but as long as he's not mad at Leo, Leo is sort of okay with that. 

"My apartment, where else?" He sighs. _"Yes,_ I have an apartment. Where did you _think_ I lived?" Pause. He shouts, "I'm not a robot!" and his tone is just so _scandalized_ that Leo stifles a giggle. "Look, sir, no matter what the baby— _junior_ agents say, I'm not actually a robot." 

Leo is just starting to relax when Mr. Coulson starts yelling. "Sir, I don't care what you think! He deserves a chance!" His voice goes quiet and hard. "If you can't understand that, then consider this my resignation." The phone slams into the receiver, making Leo jump and race back to the guest room he's sleeping in. 

"I probably shouldn't have done that," Mr. Coulson mutters to himself before calling, "Hey, Leo, are you up?" 

Leo burrows into the covers. 

He hears the door creak as Mr. Coulson peers into his bedroom. "It's time to get up, kiddo." 

He considers pretending to be asleep, until Mr. Coulson comes in and sits down at the end of the bed. "Hey, I have to head into work for a few hours today, so I need you to get up, okay?" 

"Okay." 

In the kitchen, Leo claims the chair closest to the door, in case he needs to bolt, but Mr. Coulson is between him and the door, blocking his path. "Do you want cereal or oatmeal?" 

"Oatmeal." 

A steaming bowl of sludge is slid in front of him. "Here's some brown sugar, if you want." A pair of thumps tell him that Mr. Coulson is putting his shoes on. "Are you doing okay?" 

Mr. Coulson tightens his tie for what seems like the fiftieth time. Leo mumbles something—he's not sure what—and scoots his chair further away, still sitting on its edge. 

"Well, if you need anything, let me know." 

Leo nods numbly, waiting for Mr. Coulson to do _anything_ but smile and nod and look calm. So far, he hasn't, but it's a matter of time in Leo's experience. 

Once the door clicks shut behind him, Leo stops trying to keep his hands from moving. First it's twist ties pulled from the pockets of the too-large army jacket he got from a dumpster, then it's a pencil he found on the ground. Emboldened by the adult's absence, he finds pipe cleaners in a drawer and rubber bands under a desk, and uses them to make a helicopter that keeps flying into the walls. 

"Having fun?" 

Leo jumps and tries to hide his helicopter under the desk and still his body at the same time. Neither quite works. 

"I just forgot a few things." Mr. Coulson nods toward the kitchen. "If you need something to fidget with, I have a few bouncy balls in the junk drawer. What's your diagnosis?" 

Leo hesitates. "ADHD." 

Mr. Coulson nods. "Got it. Do you take meds for it?" His only answer is a headshake. "Okay, so I don't need to worry about that. Oh, and by the way—can I see what you made?" Leo shakes his head again. "That's fine. Is there anything you'll need for the next few hours that you haven't already mentioned?" 

Another headshake. 

"In that case, I will be home in—" he checks his watch "—about three hours." 

"Okay," Leo says softly. 

**2007**

The first few weeks pass quickly. 

Mr. Coulson spends most of his time at the apartment. Leo doesn't know how he can afford to take this much time off work, but Mr. Coulson says he has "a lot of leave built up," whatever that means. Sometimes, when he _has_ to go to work, he sends people to babysit—like Clint, who has calluses up and down his forearms and makes the _best_ snickerdoodles, and Natasha, who a) is a total dork and b) says she can kill someone with her pinkie. (One time a man named Lance comes over, and the two of them successfully prank half the people on Mr. Coulson's floor. That's the last time Lance gets to babysit him alone.) 

The ground rules change over time—"don't leave the apartment without telling me" eventually becomes "don't leave the building without telling me," and "check in every half hour" stretches to one hour, then two, then three and four and stays there. 

It's been four weeks, and Mr. Coulson _finally_ has custody. They go out for ice cream to celebrate, and it becomes a tradition, just for the two of them, getting ice cream every Tuesday. 

It's been eight weeks, and the partial hours that Mr. Coulson's been working come to an end, so Leo has to go to school, even though the school year's halfway over. 

The teacher won't let him get up and walk around in class (though that changes after the first set of parent-teacher conferences), not that he was expecting it. His classmates tease him for starting late, for wearing an Army jacket with someone else's last name, for his height and his ADHD and the way he holds a pencil. His first day of school is a long one, and it's a relief when Bobbi comes to pick him up and take him home. 

(It's the first time he really thinks of the apartment as "home.")

* * *

The first time he meets Director Fury, he nearly runs from the room. It's only Mr. Coulson's hand at his back that keeps him in place. 

Fury's gaze is cool over his steepled hands. "You're probably not a spy," he decides, and Mr. Coulson laughs out loud.

* * *

It's been almost three months, and Agent Coulson takes Leo out for dinner for his birthday. "I have something for you," he says, pulling a folder out of his briefcase. 

"What is it?" Leo asks. 

"Take a look." Agent Coulson slides the folder across the table. Leo opens it, and his breath catches. 

"What—" 

"Happy birthday, Leo." 

The adoption paperwork almost gets knocked to the floor as Leo tries to hug Agent Coulson from across the table.

* * *

It's been over half a year, and they're back in Houston. It's a sweltering hot day, and they duck into a small ice-cream shop, relaxing in the blast of cool air. 

A girl about Leo's age slams her way in soon after them, asking to try a flavor before she orders. She starts in one corner and works her way through the tubs, slowly and methodically. 

"Are you really going to try every single flavor of ice cream?" Leo asks in amusement. 

"Yupperdoodles!" she replies cheerfully, licking the spoon clean. 

"If you keep this up, we're going to run out of try-it spoons," the woman behind the counter tells her. 

Her name is Piper, and they spend the weekend playing video games (she blue-shells him twice), shooting hoops (he wins, surprisingly), and trading life stories. She was born just outside of Tulsa, he learns, and she grew up on a Cherokee reservation with her father and grandfather until her dad got his first big role. She doesn't know who her bio-mom is. 

He tells her about his mom, and foster care, and living on the streets, and shows her the scars from when he lived with the Bensons and then the Garcias, and the places where his fat deposits are still growing back after his body ate them trying to stay alive, and tells her that he doesn't know who his bio-dad is. (On Sunday, they take the city bus a few streets over and several miles away, and Leo brings her to the literal hole-in-the-wall where Mama Tiger and her kids live, where he lived for a while before he met A. C. After Leo makes the introductions, Mama inspects Piper from head to toe and says she approves of Leo's new best friend. Leo barely manages not to fist-pump).

And he tells her about his powers. About the Dirt Lady, and how they got his mother killed. 

She tells him to go fill up a glass of water and dump it on his head. 

Minutes later, as Leo is toweling off his hair and sneaking awed glances at her, she tells him that she's been able to _make_ people do things for as long as she can remember. She's just as terrified of her own powers as he is. 

(They decide, right then and there, that they're going to teach themselves how _not_ to be afraid.)

After a few weeks, when filming's wrapped up, Piper and her father go home. Leo and A.C. go home as well, because while Leo isn't tired of visiting his cousins, he is tired of trying to avoid the rest of his bio-family at the same time, and that _thing_ that A.C.'s working on that Leo isn't supposed to know about is almost done anyway, so they might as well go back to D. C. Piper doesn't get to visit them that often, because she lives in California with her dad. (He sounds kind of neglectful, and Leo is _really_ glad that A. C. isn't like that.)

* * *

"Hey, elf-boy, watch where you're walking." 

"Watch where _you're_ walking," Leo almost retorts, but he decides spending the energy isn't worth it. Instead, he gathers up his books quietly, until a blonde with a visitor's pass slams the bully up against the wall. 

Well aware that everyone's watching, Leo quickly complains, "Come on, Aunt Bobbi, I was just going to let him go." 

Bobbi steps back and lets the bully drop to the ground, quietly saying, "If you touch my nephew again..." She lets the threat hang in the air, unfinished, before stooping down and picking up Leo's water bottle. 

She hands it to him, loudly admonishing, "Shouldn't you be carrying all this in your backpack? I know the instructor's covered how _not_ to give yourself scoliosis." 

"He might've. I probably wasn't paying attention," Leo admits. He dodges easily when Bobbi pretends to cuff him upside the head. "Why are you here?" he asks under his breath. "I though Lance was picking me up today." 

"The Director wants to see you," Bobbi mutters back. 

Leo nearly stops walking. "You know if you hit me every time I'm impertinent, I won't have any brain cells left," he complains out loud. "Why?" 

"Something about your new friend," Bobbi says equally quietly. Out loud, she says, "You're always impertinent." 

"Exactly." This isn't the first time he's held two conversations at the same time with the same person—one for the passersby, and one for themselves alone—but it's the first one that's dropped two bombshells so close together. "What does he want with Piper?" he whispers. 

"I don't know," Bobbi replies, and that's the last of that.

* * *

"Piper Quinn McLean, ten years old," Fury says, spreading files out on his desk. "Father is an actor, mother is unknown. Born March twenty-third, 1997, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Lives in Malibu, California, with her father. Most recent level of education: fourth grade. Current level: fifth grade, which she is completing at a boarding school in Los Angeles. She has been expelled from both of her previous schools, one for 'assaulting' an older student, the other for theft, which, interestingly, wasn't reported until two weeks after the fact." Fury flips the paper over. "Looks like you've got a miniature Steve Rogers, here; the fight apparently started when the student in question made multiple offensive remarks about one of Miss McLean's classmates. Miss McLean took exception to this and broke the student's nose." 

Leo opens his mouth, but Fury cuts him off. "Most recent vacation—if you can call it a vacation—was accompanying her father to Houston, where he was filming on location. She gets bored, she wanders off, she decides to get ice cream, then she meets you." The director stacks the papers, sets them aside, and steeples his fingers, staring at Leo. "Normally, SHIELD doesn't care who its agents' kids become friends with. You're a different story, considering how high up Coulson is. Now. Do you trust her?" 

The question catches Leo off guard. "What?" 

"Do. You. Trust. Her." 

He says without thinking, "Yeah, of course," and realizes that it's true. 

"Do you think she'll want to join SHIELD?" 

"I can't say, sir." 

"Then _ask_ her, kid." Fury's good eye is twinkling. "Fifth grade is a bit young for that kind of decision, but tell her we've got a spot for her right next to yours, if she wants it." He looks Leo up and down. "If she's anything like you? She'll make a damn fine agent one day." 

**2008**

Tony Stark is missing, and there's a monster stalking orchestral concerts all over the Tri-State area. 

"I may be gone for a few days," A. C. tells him, and he is. When he comes home, as usual, there's not much he can talk about, but he accidentally lets slip that the woman who was being stalked is rather attractive, and, well, Leo just _can't_ let a comment like that slide by.

"So she's cute?" he asks, sitting on the counter while A. C. assembles a sandwich on the cuttingboard. 

"She is," says A. C. mildly, scooping mayonnaise onto the bread and spreading it with a spoon. 

"Do you think she's pretty?" 

A. C. doesn't look up. The glare from the window reflects off the sink on his other side and straight into Leo's eyes, so he can't lean closer. "I do," he agrees. 

"How old is she?" 

A. C. does look up, now. "Why the twenty-one questions?" he inquires. His hands are still moving, layering lettuce on top of the mayonnaise and cheese on top of the lettuce. 

Leo leans as far forward and sideways as he can without falling off, finding an angle where the glare isn't as bright, so he can look right into A. C.'s face and grin at him. 

"D'you _like_ her?" he whispers conspiratorially. 

A. C. swats at him—thankfully with the hand that isn't holding the knife—and tells him to get off the counter. "Isn't it about time for you to leave for school?" 

Leo twists around to look at the clock on the stove. "Shit you're right!" he realizes, and leaps to the ground. 

"Language!" A. C. calls as he dashes down the hall to the front door, jamming his feet into his shoes after his toes run into them. 

"I know!" he calls backs. His coat isn't on the hook where it should be—it's behind a few others, and seriously, a mostly-two-person apartment _should not_ have this many coats. 

"Study group is tonight?" 

"Yep!" 

"It's at the Sununus, right?" 

"Yeah, it is!" Backpack, backpack, where is his backpack... Bingo! It's lying on the floor; the closet door had blocked it from view. 

"Say hi to John and Catherine Grace for me!" 

"I will!" 

There's his binder! Leo stuffs it and the papers falling out of it back into the canvas bag he carries it in, before slinging the bag over his arm and running back into the kitchen. 

"Have fun, study hard, don't kiss anyone who has their own security detail..." 

"That was one time and we were playing Spin the Bottle." 

"Aren't you supposed to be _studying_ at these things? Hey. You." A. C. pulls him into a hug as he slides past, ruffling his hair and releasing him so Leo can grab his lunch before he dashes back to the door. 

"It was getting late and we were bored!" He glances at the time. "Gotta go! Bye!" 

"Don't blow anything up!" A. C. calls after him. 

"I _know_ that, _Dad!"_

It's not until Leo's sprinted out the door of the apartment building and is running down the sidewalk that he realizes that a) he just called A. C. "Dad" for the first time, and b) he grabbed the wrong lunch. 

_Oh, well. If he didn't hit me for breaking that vase that one time, he probably won't hit me for stealing his sandwich._

* * *

Bahrain... Bahrain is _bad_. 

Leo isn't allowed to know what happened. 

He's barely allowed to know that Agent May— _Aunt May_ —is coping badly. 

But he does know a bit about trauma, and a bit about PTSD, and a lot about pain, so three or four times a week he bikes, and takes the subway, and takes the city bus to her house with a box full of everything that he and A. C. and A. C.'s girlfriend Audrey and Miranda-across-the-hall have baked for her in the last couple days, and he stays with her while she shops for groceries and goes for her run in the park. 

And later, after they get back, after the groceries are put away, he sits next to her on the couch while she watches TV, while she lets herself break, and he talks. 

It starts off easy. Weather _("It's been a really nice month." "Mm-hmm." "Want to go to the park? See if I'm small enough for the little-kid equipment? I bet you I'm not." "Mm-nmm.")_ , the election _("I'm thinking Obama is going to win, but I'm hoping for either him or Clinton. Who are you rooting for?" "Clinton." "Cool.")_ , and school _("I got an A on my geography test!" "That's nice.")_. Simple stuff like that. 

Then Leo starts bringing up the stuff A. C.'s told him about work—how Uncle Clint and Aunt Natasha are doing, that Aunt Bobbi and Uncle Lance are getting a divorce, the mob of stuffed animals that's beginning to take over Sitwell's office and sanity. (The updates on that always get her to smile.) 

He calls her _Aunt May,_ most of the time, and calls her _Aunt Melinda_ once before she tells him to never call her that again. He counts that as a win. 

Eventually she starts talking, too. Leo's monologues become full, two sided conversations. 

A lot of times, they talk about scars: the scar on May's knee from when she jumped out of a tree at age five, the line on Leo's finger from when he got too close to one of his mom's tools at age four, the bullet wound in May's thigh, the dent in the back of Leo's head. Aunt May looks downright murderous when he tells her about that and starts muttering about finding and strangling that particular foster dad. Leo reassures her that he's fine, now, and that said foster dad is in jail and will be for a long time. (He's still scared, a little, of A. C. May squeezes his shoulder. She doesn't need to tell him that that reflex will fade. He already knows that; he's just scared that he'll need it again someday, long after it's gone.) 

And then she tells him about Bahrain. 

As much as she can, at least. 

She can't talk about much. 

But what she can talk about—what Leo _is_ allowed to know about—is _bad_. 

It's not much. 

But it helps. 

(Soon enough, she's back at work, this time in Administration. Leo stops visiting quite as much afterwards. When she and Andrew start the divorce process, though, he comes back. He always will, for family.)

* * *

SHIELD brings Tony Stark home, with all the fanfare associated. With A. C. in California, Leo is stuck staying with Miranda-across-the-hall—not that's she a bad babysitter, or a bad person, but she smells way too much like _oranges_ for some reason for Leo's liking. (For Saturday and Sunday, her old college roommate comes down from New York, bringing her son with her, but not her husband. Percy is seven months older than Leo, kicks everyone's butts on the Mario Kart Wii that Leo's neighbors down the hall _just_ bought, and takes an incredibly long shower on Saturday night—apparently he always does. He's ADHD, like Leo is, and dyslexic as well. It seems like a really crappy combination, and Leo says as much.) 

(Leo also shows Percy better ways to cover up his bruises with his mom's makeup, just like one of his foster-sisters taught him, once. Neither of them bring it up later. Percy's mom doesn't know anything about it.) 

Sunday evening, all four of them cram onto Miranda's couch for Tony Stark's press conference—his second since coming home, and the first since whatever-it-was happened at the main Stark Industries building. 

Because it's Stark, the press conference eventually turns into an utter train wreck. By the time the questions start, Stark has dug himself quite the hole; Leo is popping popcorn into his mouth like there's no tomorrow. 

(He can just _see_ A. C. face-palming off camera. It's _hilarious_.) 

"The truth is... I am Iron Man." 

Leo and Percy whoop and holler, Miranda cheers, and Sally laughs. Leo think that he just might have found a new favorite superhero. 

(Well. Second-favorite. Captain America is still better. Don't tell Coulson, but Leo's love of the Captain? It's all A. C.'s fault.) 

**2009**

The first time A. C. brings his girlfriend home, Leo is in his room with Piper, _trying_ to build a scale model of a nuclear reactor out of Legos and Tinker Toys. (Leo isn't sure where the grease is coming from, but it's coming from _somewhere,_ and he's had to wash his hands five times now.)

He can hear Ms. Nathan—not quite Audrey, yet—comment that the apartment seems a bit too big for a bachelor living alone, and A. C.'s awkward non-attempt to explain. Leo and Piper are listening at the door to the living room, so they're ready when A. C. says that they can come in. 

"Leo, this is Audrey, my girlfriend. Audrey, meet Leo, my son." 

Leo ignores the thrill of pleasure and fear that races through him at "my son"— _no way out now_ —and gives Ms. Nathan an awkward smile, telling her he's adopted as he walks into the room. 

She's not his mom, she's never going to replace his mom, and it makes things a bit awkward, though only for him, it seems, as A. C. and Ms. Nathan keep making heart eyes at each other and Piper looks on with a smile. But Ms. Nathan turns out to be a pretty good cook, and a _lot_ better at algebra than he is, and when he stuffs himself into a dress shirt and tie for his middle school's spring concert, she's there in the third row, camera in hand and a big smile on her face. She's not even trying too hard—she doesn't seem to be trying at all, as if she took one look at him and decided, _Yes, this small child is mine now,_ but it takes the end-of-year science fair for him to decide that she's _his,_ just as much as Piper and A. C. are. 

(He has to admit, her facing down those bullies for him is kind of an epic moment, especially since she holds them off long enough for A. C. to arrive and put the fear of Phil Coulson into them. His project is a bit damaged, but it never really measured up to last year's robot chicken anyway. And, even better, he'll never have to see those bullies again starting next year, because next year he'll be in training to become a SHIELD agent and they'll still be stuck in the black hole of middle school.)

* * *

The low, hulking building of D. C. Junior takes Leo's breath away. As the group of new students walks through the halls (their guide seems to be a little awestruck by A. C.), it's more because of the history that they'll soon be a part of than anything else. 

They meet Ms. Weaver, their head-of-year; Donnie, a quiet nerd headed for Sci-Tech; Kelly, a cheerleader at her old school, headed straight for Ops; Angie from Richmond, Terrence from Derry, Clara from Baltimore, Janelle from Gander. There are twenty students in their grade, and more at campuses in Seattle, Atlanta, and San Francisco. 

(Somehow, Piper uses her Jedi mind trick to snag them a dorm room together. "These aren't the droids you're looking for!" Leo yells after Ms. Weaver, laughing hysterically. Piper hits him with a pillow.) 

After they get their schedules, and A. C. heads home, and they get the standard warning of _it only gets harder from here_ , Leo flops back into the bed that's going to be home for the next four years. “This is where it all begins,” he tells Piper, happily. 

“It all starts here,” Piper replies, grinning. “We’ve almost made it!”

* * *

The weeks start slow and pass quickly, in a blur of history, hand-to-hand combat, weapons theory, politics, and foreign languages, mixed in with normal middle-school subjects like English and Math and Science. 

A small class like theirs makes for fast friends. One-off quips become running jokes faster than Kelly can sneeze at cat hair: that Angie is secretly a werewolf, that Leo and Piper are secretly twins who were separated at birth, that one of these days _someone_ is going to fall out of one of those wobbly English-classroom chairs. Wednesday nights find all of them crowded around the TV in the common room watching movies and singing along to the soundtrack—whoever forgets the most lines has to vacuum up the popcorn. (One Friday in October, Piper actually _does_ fall out of her chair. Leo never lets her live it down.)

* * *

What started out as hints and hunches starts to shift into something bigger, when Piper hits her knee on her desk and Leo feels the pain, when Leo's happiness at an experiment turning out right carries over to Piper on the other side of campus. On Wednesday Night Movie Night, they sprawl half on top of each other, like whatever concept of personal space they had has disappeared. 

Something's changing between them, Leo knows, knows it in his bones. He and Piper start staying as close together as possible, like it's them against the world, worried that _whatever-this-is_ will break them; she even comes with him to church on Sundays, as Father Mazzare tells them, week after week, that he still can't find anything, any modern references to this _thing_. There's no way to measure it, no way to quantify it, no validation or confirmation to be found for what Leo and Piper know in their bones. The only guide there is seems to be what they can figure out themselves. 

Then January comes, and their link becomes the least of their worries. 

**2010**

Piper's words are terrifying. 

_"HYDRA still exists. It's inside SHIELD. And I know Sitwell is Hydra too."_ —and sometimes he's _Uncle_ Sitwell, and that hurts almost as bad as any foster-parent's blow. 

Almost as bad as the knowledge that no one is going to listen to them. 

They're twelve, going on thirteen, and they're too young for anyone to take seriously. 

Then the Stark Expo happens—then the proposal and Oaxaca and the wedding happen—and it's almost driven out of their minds, and sheer denial blocks it off, never to be thought of again. 

Then _Lena_ happens, his baby sister comes into their lives, and everything come rushing back.

* * *

The Stark Expo comes first. 

It's May. 

Not too cold, not too warm as the four of them stand in the crowd, watching Stark himself on one of the big screens, since they can't see the stage. 

Leo's half keeping an eye on the festivities and half on the program he's got running on his laptop, scanning through internal memos and stored security recordings so he can piece together just how deep the rot inside SHIELD goes. That means that he's not paying attention when Stark's Law ("If it's possible for _anything_ to go wrong, it will, usually in the most spectacular possible way") goes into full effect. 

Everything happens fast after that. Aunt Natasha goes undercover. Leo is ordered to spend his afternoons after school at the R&D labs, fetching and carrying for the Nerds he'll someday be one of. He's not told what they're working on that's so important. Overheard discussions indicate that they're looking for a cure for _something_ , so Leo keeps an eye on the news, waiting for mention of a new pandemic. (There's nothing. The only reference to any epidemic that he hears about is all about the swine flu from last year. It must be something else, then.) 

Stark's birthday party, he hears, is explosive—pun intended. A. C. goes back to babysitting Stark—apparently Aunt Natasha's done her job. Then the bombs go off at Stark Expo, and suddenly Leo and Piper are _literally in Tony Stark's mansion_ , and for the first time in four months they're _not_ thinking about HYDRA and its tentacled grip, because this, this is so much _easier_ to think about. 

Tony is _delighted_ when he learns about Leo's fire powers. He insists immediately on testing everything he can _("You're not allowed to become a supervillain, Tony." "But Pepper!")_ —blood, skin, DNA, everything. 

Leo's muscle and epithelial tissue are resistant to fire and all forms of heat; his connective tissue is not: a blood sample boils readily, and when Tony tests one of Leo's baby teeth, it chars just the same way as a normal person's bone would. ("Hey, A. C., did you give Tony one of my baby teeth?" "No, why would I? Why would he need it?" "All right, Tony, spill. Where did you get the tooth from?" "Oh! I, uh, I asked your grandfather. Hope you don't mind.") 

When they get around to testing his DNA, they get... a big fat load of nothing. 

More than that, they find out that Leo is an almost exact genetic copy of his mother. 

_("Where_ did you get a sample of my mom's DNA?" "Asked your grandfather." _"What.")_

(On the bright side, this puts Leo back in contact with the older members—with one obvious exception—of his bio-family, as two days later he gets a letter from Sammy Valdez, Jr., asking why _Tony Stark_ wants to know if he knows who his grandson's father is.)

Except then Tony wants to test Piper, too, and it gets the same result, that she and her father have almost identical DNA. Tony gets that spark in his eye, the one that means that he has An Idea, but then Pepper arrives and tells him that a product that's in beta testing is malfunctioning, which distracts him long enough that he loses his train of thought. Then, weirdly, she turns around and winks at them, and then leaves with Tony without another word.

* * *

By the time June rolls around, he's gotten used to having JARVIS's voice in his ear. Piper is quietly learning how to fly the suit Tony made for her, which her nerdy butt has named _the Silver Dragon._ ("Like the restaurant in Hell's Kitchen?" "That's the _Royal_ Dragon, Leo.") Rumors start buzzing about Stark's young protégé, quickly and efficiently shut down by Stark Industries' PR department. 

Back home, in Washington, A. C. sits down next to Leo on his bed with a serious expression. "You like Audrey, right?" he asks, acting like he's worried for some reason. 

Leo shrugs. "Yeah, she's awesome." 

Suddenly shy, A. C. pulls a box out of his jacket; Leo's eyes bug out. "I, uh, I _may_ have asked Pepper for advice on this." 

_"Dude,_ is that what I think it is?" 

"It is, and don't call me 'dude'." He puts it in his lap; opens it, and shows Leo. "And yes, it's an engagement ring." 

"So? When are you going to ask her?" 

"Well, that all depends on you." 

"What do you..." The penny drops. "You're asking _me_ for permission to marry your girlfriend?" 

A. C. looks at him, a puzzled expression on his face. "Well, yes, this _does_ directly affect you. And you _are_ the most important person in my life; don't be surprised if..."

He's cut off by Leo throwing his arms around his neck, with what feels like it has to be the biggest grin of Leo's _life_ stretching across his face. "Marry her," he says into A. C.'s shoulder, then pulls back and repeats, _"Marry her,"_ slightly louder. 

A. C. is smiling too. "So I take I have permission?" 

"You _definitely_ have my permission." 

"Want to go do it now?" 

"What—like, _now_ -now? _Jeez,_ you're impatient, lemme just find the camera..." 

A. C. pauses in the doorway before he heads to the living room, where Audrey is sitting on the couch. "Oh, and by the way, I want you to be my best man." 

"Wait a minute, I thought Uncle Nick had dibs!"

* * *

Leo and Piper get out of wedding planning, just for a week, when his grandfather invites them to go visit some of Leo's more distant relatives—his third cousins or something—in Oaxaca. 

Everything changes in Oaxaca.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The events in Oaxaca are not a reference to anything that happened in either canon. You'll have to wait until the next chapter to find out what, exactly happens there. 
> 
> Apologies for the swearing—apparently my Leo-muse has a potty mouth. 
> 
> Some notes on inspiration and borrowed characters: Miranda-across-the-hall is from HecateA's [The Parenthood Drabbles](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8822505/74/The-Parenthood-Drabbles). 
> 
> No, I have no idea how [Father Lawrence Mazzare](http://ericflint.wikia.com/wiki/Lawrence_Mazzare) got from [1630's Germany](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1632_\(novel\)) to 2009 Washington, D. C. (Cameos are FUN.)
> 
> The idea of Piper and Leo's mind-link is stolen from (with modification) Jean Johnson's [The First Salik War](http://www.jeanjohnson.net/TheFirstSalikWar.html) novels, which is the prequel series to [Theirs Not to Reason Why](http://www.jeanjohnson.net/theirs.html), also known as my third-favorite book series of all time (after, of course, the Young Wizards series and Percy Jackson).


	2. first battle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "War loses a great deal of its romance after a soldier has seen his first battle."-John Singleton Mosby
> 
> Oaxaca, and everything that follows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: One of the side characters in this chapter is an actual person. I've never met them, don't have their permission, and probably have their personality completely wrong. 
> 
> Warnings: This is probably the worst chapter. I don't go into much detail, but this is where most of the trigger warnings at the beginning come from. 
> 
> Trigger Warnings: Past child abuse, PTSD in a child, depictions of violence, depictions of physical trauma, child characters as soldiers, depiction of recovery from child abuse, on-screen panic attack, graphic off-screen violence, _massive_ off-screen cumulative death toll, only-partially-reluctant acceptance of the existence of child soldiers by authority figures, and all other warnings associated with war and the use of child soldiers. 
> 
> Hopefully, most of the violence is sufficiently out of focus; however, I'd advise veterans, active-duty personnel, and anyone with claustrophobia, hyperempathy, or a sensitive stomach to read with caution. 
> 
> Content warnings: Swearing; POV characters trapped in a small, enclosed space at the beginning of the first scene. 
> 
> Other notes: I got to show off my Spanish skills while writing this; translations are at the end. 
> 
> Pronunciation:  
> Oaxaca: Wa-HA-ca  
> Julia: HOO-lee-a  
> Mexíco: Meh-HEE-co
> 
> This is as good a time as any to note that I wrote the remainder of this fic and parts of the other two pretty much simultaneously, and wrote the scenes out of order. It... kind of shows. 
> 
> This is NOT proofread, because I have homework to finish.

Once the shaking has stopped, Leo curls closer into Piper, praying that their shelter won't collapse around them. He tries to ask, "Are you okay?" and "What do you think is happening?" but the choking dust cuts him off and the words get lost in the silence. 

A hand grabs his; he nearly yelps until he realizes that it's Piper, turning his hand over so the palm faces up. _U OK?_ she taps out with her finger. _Y, U?_ he replies, and they take turns tapping out short messages on each other's palms, letting it distract them from the sort of silence that only creaking wood, and broken stone, and distant screaming can create. 

_F-I-R-E?_ she spells out at one point. Leo concentrates until a small flame appears on the tip of his finger. The dancing shadows make the small shelter that the collapsed ceiling has created around them all the more terrifying. He extinguishes the flame. 

They've curled into each other as much as possible. "I'm so scared," Piper says, and Leo tries to speak until he realizes that he still can't, and that Piper didn't speak out loud at all. 

He sends a wave of amazement, with love pouring right behind it, because that's the first time they've ever heard each other thinking. 

The floor jolts, and their own fear stenches up the air around them. Another part of the building has given way. They hold onto each other tighter. 

Something snuffles outside, somewhere in the room surrounding them, sounding exactly like one of the _creatures_ that had been prowling around before the roof collapsed. A low, inhuman growl follows. 

_I-L-Y,_ Leo taps into Piper's palm; they're both trembling hard. 

_I-L-Y-2,_ Piper taps back, and then they stay frozen until long after the pack's moved on. 

The floor jolts again, breaking a chunk off the stone above them, and Leo only knows because it hits his arm, hard, and he nearly screams. The stonework around them shifts, and shifts again, and settles, and it takes a second for both of them to realize that there’s fresh air and a little light coming in.

Piper sits up and scoots forward— _stay back,_ she sends, _your arm might be broken_ —and starts poking around the spot where the air is trickling in from. Then the stonework shifts again, and they swap places, so that Leo can go after the weakened area with his good arm while Piper holds everything up with her own body. 

Another jolt hits just as Leo breaks through, and the entire shelter collapses. Piper screams as she's buried; Leo screams too, looking for her, until he spies her hand sticking out. He pulls her up until they can both pull themselves to their feet and into cleaner air, standing in what's now a pile of rubble. 

The small amount of moonlight and starlight, filtered through the cloud cover, that comes in from the now-open roof makes things a little brighter. Just as Leo looks up, a raindrop hits him right in the eye. With his eyes screwed shut, Leo takes a cautious step forward, and another, until his foot collides with something soft. 

"Is that...?" Piper whispers behind him, sounding horrified. 

Leo reaches down and feels for the man's face, finding glasses and the feathered pen that his cousin always tucked behind his ear. "It's Diego," he confirms, choking back tears. Piper cuts off her own sob, in case the pack comes back. 

The pile of rubble shifts around as Piper pulls her feet free and limps forward, coming to stand at Leo's side. "Leo. Look around," she whispers, and it all makes horrible sense. 

The dead lay everywhere; the copper smell of blood fills the air. Some of Leo's own cousins are among them. "They were supposed to get to safety," Leo whispers. "Before the attack came. We were _all_ supposed to go to the city, where we'd all be _safe."_

Piper grabs his hand. "There'll be time to grieve later." Her voice is rough. "But for right now—" 

"We have to keep ourselves alive." 

Piper nods in agreement. "Let's get out of the building. Can you help me walk?" Before he can wrap his arm around her, she stops him. "Wait. Doesn't Diego carry a gun?" 

Leo crouches down again and pulls the gun out of its holster. He checks the safety and the magazine, just like they've learned in school, in the dim light. "I don't know how many rounds we have left," he warns as he passes her the gun. 

"That's okay," she whispers, sliding it into her waistband, safety on. She wraps an arm around his shoulders; he wraps his good arm around her waist, and they set off, picking their way around dead bodies and piles of ruined building material. At the door, Piper takes point until she's cleared the hallway; they get about two steps before they have to squeeze around a gaping hole in the floor. 

Two flights of mostly-clear stairs and one near run-in with the creatures later, the building jolts again. This time, the collapse is on the top floor, directly above them; a falling piece of debris nearly beans Piper in the head. Seconds later, someone starts yelling. 

"¿Hola? ¿Hay alguien allí?"

"¡Estamos aquí!" Leo calls back. "¿Dónde está? Necesita ayuda?" 

"¡Sí!" the man calls weakly. "Mi pierna es atrapado." 

"Nosotros se encontraremos," Leo promises. "Y se ayudaremos." 

When they find him, the man's leg is trapped, as he'd said it was. "Podemos mover esta," Leo assures him. 

"Gracias," the man murmurs. His head lolls back against the wall. 

"No se duerme," Leo orders. "Nosotros tenemos que salir. Me llamo Leo. ¿Y su?"

"Me llamo Ricardo," he rasps out. "¿Y quién está?" 

"Está es mi hermana, Piper," Leo tells him. "Ella no habla Español." 

"Está bien. Yo no hablo Inglés." 

Leo chuckles. "Soy el primo de Diego, Ana, y Julia," he adds. 

Ricardo's face lights up. "¡Julia!" he says enthusiastically. "¡La mujer más bonita en Mexíco!" 

"Lo siento, pero ella es casada." 

Ricardo sighs. "Yo sé. Ahora yo puedo sólo soñar." 

Something howls nearby. "¿Puede andar?" Leo asks urgently. 

Ricardo nods and tries to get up. "Sí, sí... no." He sits back down, groaning. Leo and Piper haul him back up, throwing each of his arms around their shoulders. Piper bites back a shout of pain as her weight falls on her sprained ankle. "¿Está bien?" Ricardo asks. 

"I'm fine," she mutters curtly. 

Ricardo guides them back to the stairwell in an odd rendition of a three-legged race. "Estamos en el octavo piso," he tells them. 

"The... eighth floor?" Piper guesses. "Well that sucks." 

The creatures arrive just before they reach the door to the stairwell. Piper spins around, letting Leo hold Ricardo up, and covers them with Diego's gun. In the dark, there's no way to know how many—if any—of her shots land. 

"Leo, I need a light," she says urgently once they're safe in the stairwell. Leo, obligingly, lights up a finger on his left hand, so Piper can reload with a magazine she found somewhere. 

"No pensé tus parientes tenemos—tuvieron—poderes," Ricardo says, looking at him carefully. 

"No, ellos no tuvieron poderes. Pero yo hago," Leo replies. 

Then Piper re-holsters the gun, ducks back under Ricardo's right arm, and lets Leo lead the way downstairs.

* * *

On the second-floor landing, five minutes, three packs of creatures—nahuals, Ricardo calls them—and one emptied magazine later, the ceiling groans ominously. 

"We have to get out," Piper mutters. 

Ricardo may not understand her _words,_ but he definitely understands her _tone_. "Sí, por supuesto," he agrees.

Then a creaking comes, a sound that Leo _knows,_ that comes straight out of a five-year-old memory that he never wants to remember again. "Run!" and "¡Corre!", he yells, starting to run, hauling his sister and their new friend with him. They make it down the last two flights of stairs, through the stairwell door, and into the hundred-foot-stretch to _freedom_ , and then...

...The building _shatters_.

* * *

After that, it's all a blur of exhaustion, and fear, and screaming.

He doesn't even notice the ground shaking, bringing the building down around them— _six-point-two on the Richter Scale,_ he finds out later—as he and Piper and Ricardo fight their way out. 

He lets himself be pulled along as the few adults still standing herd the four dozens or so survivors—mostly children—into the packed wagon, the only transport the tiny town seems to have left. 

He and Piper, wrapped around each other, mostly sleep through the ride to the nearest big town, where they have a hospital, and the Internet, and working electricity. 

He barely registers the people who come to meet them, the shouting exchanges, the person yelling something about Americanos, the steady hands wrapping a bandage around his wrist and arm, telling him, _tú eres muy valiente, nene; ahora flexiona tu muñeca para mi._

As light begins to bleed into the sky, Leo stands in the street, talking to his cousin Julia and his Great-Aunt Zyanya. (She's actually some kind of cousin—after a few generations' separation, everyone is.) Everything is still a bit hazy until a commotion starts. 

Leo and his cousins move toward it; Piper appears next to them, and Julia starts translating for her as they join the crowd flowing toward a patch of the empty land outside of town. 

A crack of thunder tolls. The crowd sees, and understands. 

Some kind of army that makes Leo's head hurt just looking at it is approaching the town. 

With adrenaline's clarity, the world snaps back into some sort of focus. The real battle begins. 

Diego's gun barks _one-two-three_ in Piper's hands, knocking one of the nahuals back. Leo ducks and rolls, barely missing a dog-like creature's fangs, and leaves scorch marks on its chin. Behind him, Ricardo's voice shouts something that sounds like a battle cry. 

"¡Lanceros! ¡Dispara!" a woman's voice yells, and Leo hits the ground as a dozen spears find their targets. "¡Arqueros!", and a rain of arrows follows. 

Someone yells at him to get off the battlefield, but Leo barely hears them, too busy trying to fight the creatures. He trips, falls, gets back up, and tries not to get in anyone's way. At Piper's shout, he looks up, and realizes there isn't an ally in sight. And the monsters around him are all turning to look at him. 

Some of them are drooling. 

One launches itself at him. 

Leo reacts on instinct and the bare bones of SHIELD training. He ducks down and _pushes_ , sending the creature flying over his back. 

Two more roar and lunge, sending Leo scrambling back on his hands and knees. They land on his back, their claws digging through his shirt. _This is it, this is how I die,_ he thinks, bucking and yelling until he can roll over on his back, exposing his stomach but also freeing his hands to fight. He claws at the creatures' stomachs, until some lost instinct catches his hands on fire. 

A moment of clarity follows. 

Dimly, he hears Piper leap into action to defend him, as the creatures yowl and scramble away and he scrambles to his feet. 

He sees the next monster stomping _(the Dirt Woman gliding)_ towards him, hears his sister _(his mother)_ screaming behind him, feels the ground shaking _(the floor trembling)_ under him...

_Stop being scared, mijo._

"Mama?" he whispers. 

Then the entire _world_ catches on fire.

* * *

Hours later, after his injuries are rebandaged and his coughing has stopped, he's gotten tired of the awed looks being sent his way. 

He sits in a hard plastic chair, wearing borrowed clothes, staring at his hands. There's not a single burn on his body. Next to him, Piper reverentially cleans the dagger she'd found and used during the battle, now officially hers. 

She nudges him. "Hey," she says, "we'll be okay." 

Leo nods, but doesn't look up. 

In the end, not a single member of the Valdez family had survived both attacks. 

Second and third cousins he'd barely even known, gone in a matter of hours. 

"Our ride's here." 

In a daze, he follows her and the man who will drive them to the airport out the door and into the car. He doesn't answer his questions, listening to Piper answer him instead. 

It's two hours of bumpy road from Santiago Ixtayutla to Oaxaca de Juárez and a three-hour wait before their flight boards, but finally, more than half a day after the ceiling collapsed around them, the wheels lift off and they're finally going _home_. 

It's seven and a half hours and one layover (in _Houston,_ of all places) to Washington, D. C. Leo drinks some ginger ale, eats some airplane food, goes through some of the belongings that were recovered from the rubble, and settles into the book of puzzles the person across the aisle gives him, as well as being Piper's pillow. He wakes her up in Houston, so they can explore the airport until Leo's family arrives, then collapse in Great-Grandma Carmen's arms and grieve for half and hour until it's time to re-embark. 

Then they're back in the air, and Piper becomes Leo's pillow until he wakes up somewhere over Tennessee. After that, it's a countdown until they reach Washington, until they pull their bags (that are just a bit too light now) out of the overhead compartment and disembark with all the other passengers, until they can get through Customs, and get up the stairs and into the baggage claim, and reclaim their suitcases (that are just a bit too empty), and then shake off the flight attendant who's been babysitting them since they disembarked like they _didn't_ just go through a war...

Until they start looking around the waiting area, and see a tall man with a eyepatch, and a short, stern woman, and a man in a vest, and a woman with bright red hair. And there, in the middle of them all, are a man with a receding hairline and a woman with long brown hair, and suddenly they're dropping their bags and suitcases on the floor and launching themselves into their parents' arms, and then suddenly they're finally, _finally_ home, and they are finally, _finally, **safe.**_

* * *

Lila Barton has to be the _cutest_ toddler Leo's ever seen, he decides, with her polka-dot dress and ribbons in her hair. She's babbling contentedly at her father and older brother, while Clint redoes her hair and seven-year-old Cooper watches in fascination, fidgeting with his tie and dress shirt. (Leo can sympathize; his own outfit is just as itchy.)

Piper is not only wearing a dress, but she's managed to force herself into makeup as well, which looks decidedly uncomfortable. Nevertheless, she's grinning ear-to-ear, trading jokes with Aunt Tasha while the six of them wait for the organ music to start. When it does, Leo and Piper push open the doors, holding them open for Cooper and Lila to pass through. Cooper grips Lila's hand tightly, as if afraid she'll dump the basket of petals all over the place as soon as she has the chance. (About halfway down the aisle, the two-year-old manages to pull half of them out at once, which makes her squeal in delight. Cooper has to pick her up so she'll stop stomping around on them.) 

Leo and Piper are next, as the best man and maid of honor. A. C. (who's currently doing his level best to avoid being drooled on by a toddler, while the toddler in question does _her_ level best to undo his tie) watches them approach with no small measure of relief; Piper takes charge of Lila as soon as they make it to the whatever-it's-called at the front of the room, while Leo stands next to Cooper. 

Uncle Clint and Aunt Natasha follow right behind them; Tasha has to step carefully to avoid catching her high heels on the flower petals. Once they reach the front, it's simply a matter of waiting, until the organ music swells and Audrey and her mother appear. 

Leo sneaks a glance at A. C.; he looks completely starstruck and hopelessly in love. It's an utterly hilarious expression on his normally stoic face. Piper rolls her eyes at him in mutual exasperation. _You do realize that they’re going to be ten times worse now, right?_ she sends. 

Leo grins. _Yes. Yes I do._

* * *

"—so _then,_ Phil goes, 'Are you looking for this?', _throws_ his coffee, cup and all, into that poor man's face, and then he _runs_ straight out of the coffee shop and into the street, _right_ into the path of a streetcar." Aunt Maria waves her arms expansively, as if trying to convey the ridiculousness of A. C.'s first mission—or as she's telling it, a visit to Sausalito that had quickly gone haywire. 

"And _where_ was May in all this?" one of Audrey's friends—a violinist, Leo thinks—asks, his eyebrows nearly up to his hairline. 

"San Francisco Bay," Aunt May says, taking another sip of her almost-definitely-spiked punch. She adds, "It was another _three hours_ before Phil got around to fishing me out." 

Several people whistle in disbelief. 

"All right, all right—all right!" A. C.'s voice quiets the room. "Enough making fun of me. I'm pretty sure it's time for the best man speech. Leo?" 

Leo stands up and looks at A. C. _"Why_ are you making me do this, again?" he asks loudly, making a few people chuckle. 

"Because your Uncle Nick knows too many embarrassing stories about me, and I'd rather not risk it." 

"Fiiiiiiine," he draws out, acting every inch the annoyed teenager. 

Leo raises his glass. 

"When I first met Phil Coulson," he says, "I was nine years old and homeless..."

* * *

"Leo?" 

He props himself up on his elbow, looking at the small figure in the doorway. "Yeah, kid?" 

"Can I... talk to you?" 

"Sure thing, kiddo." He climbs out of bed, careful not to disturb Piper on the bottom bunk. (It took moving to a new apartment, but they _finally_ have bunk beds after two years of begging.) "What's up?" 

Helena picks at her nightshirt. "You're... like me, right?" 

It takes a second before it clicks. "You mean, a foster kid?" 

She nods, illuminated by the nightlight in the hallway. 

"Yeah, I was." 

"What was it like? When you got adopted?" 

He chuckles lightly. "Come on, chula. Let's talk about this in the living room, where we won't wake anyone up, okay?

"It all started with a scared little boy in an alleyway..."

* * *

Come morning, Audrey walks into the living room, coffee in hand, only to stop and blink her eyes at the sight of her son and brand-new younger daughter laying on the couch. 

"We had a few things to talk about," Leo tells his brand-new mom, absentmindedly carding his fingers through his sleeping sister's curly hair.

* * *

After Lena, they shift their focus, from gathering evidence to protecting SHIELD kids. Leo hacks into database after database, finding names and addresses and connections, while Piper works on building a network of safehouses for the kids, in case worst comes to worst and they have to be evacuated. 

They have their first breakthrough when their classmate, Angie, invites them to her birthday party. 

She lives on a sprawling compound outside Richmond, with not just her parents and siblings but her aunts and uncles and cousins as well. One such cousin joins Leo in the kitchen when he's getting more water for Angie's mom ("Call me Gina, kid."), and they make small talk until Angie's cousin drops his cup and _growls_.

Leo's first thought is of the nahuals they fought against in Oaxaca; his second is of the ones that fought alongside them; his third is _wrong place, wrong country, wrong nationality._

His panic attack doesn't respond to logic, or anything, really, besides Piper wrapping her arms around him. "You're okay, you're okay," she mutters in his ear. "We're safe. You're having a panic attack. We learned how to deal with this in class. Take a deep breath. What's your name?" 

"My name is Leonardo Tesla Valdez," Leo recites. 

"How old are you?" 

"Thirteen."

"Come on. You're doing great. Let's try grounding now, okay? Your name is Leonardo Tesla Valdez..." 

"My name is Leonardo Tesla Valdez. I am thirteen years old. I'm from Houston, Texas. I live in Washington, D. C.," he recites frantically. "My birthdate is March twenty-fifth, nineteen ninety-seven. I am thirteen years old. My best friend is Piper Quinn McLean. My name is Leonardo Tesla Valdez..." 

She gets him to the couch in the living room, where everyone but Angie's family has cleared out to go do... something else. Leo doesn't know; he's too busy breathing. 

Gina waits until his breathing has steadied before telling Piper, "As you might have guessed, we're a family of werewolves." 

Leo looks up, letting it register. "Like... the nahuals in Oaxaca?" 

Gina looks at him in confusion. "Nahuals?" 

"They're a kind of shape-shifter? I don't what mythology they're from, but they're from Latin America. We ran into some when I was visiting family in Mexico, down in Oaxaca." 

Gina's grandfather—whose name Leo hasn't quite gotten—raises an eyebrow at him. 

Piper interjects, "We didn't really get to talk to them, though. We were sent home almost right after the battle." 

_"Battle?"_

"Uh, yeah." Leo gets the feeling that Gina's grandfather is cheerfully watching him dig a verbal hole. "No one would really tell us what was happening, but there was an attack and it took... pretty much everyone in town who could fight to fend it off." Bile wells up in Leo's throat at the memory. 

Gina's grandfather—Angie's great-grandfather—takes a drag from his cigarette and finally speaks up. "So the Isolation—" and Leo can _hear_ the capital I "—is over, then?" 

Piper holds up her hands in a _t_ , signaling for a stop. "Wait, what? What Isolation?" 

The man starts to speak, stops, stares, and nearly drops his cigarette in shock. "You don't even _know,_ do you?" 

Leo stares at him, waiting for answers. "Know... what, exactly?" 

"Jesus," he mutters. He rubs his face. "You kids are lucky you—Wait, this was in Oaxaca? Was it near Santiago Ixtayutla?" 

"Uh, yeah, how'd you—" 

"I haven't heard from Nayeli in _weeks,"_ he interrupts. 

Leo vaguely remembers a small, plump, cheerful woman, who wore colorful clothes, her long hair loose, and power like a cloak. "Nayeli Díaz?" 

The man's mouth drops open. "Jesus Christ, you're _those_ kids." 

"I... wasn't aware we had a reputation," Piper says carefully. 

"Wasn't aware... You two blew up half an army!" 

“...It was an accident?” Leo offers.

Piper snickers. 

"Accident or not, it was still impressive," the old man mutters. 

"Grandpa," Gina interjects, "what on _Earth_ are you talking about?" 

"Ask these two." He nods at them. "They were there." 

Under the weight of everyone's stares, Leo squirms. "I don't even know what really happened," he mutters.

"I do," Piper interrupts. Leo looks at her, slightly surprised, as she begins talking. She weaves a story about what _really_ happened that day: seeing Leo by himself on the enemy's side of the battlefield, leaping in to defend him ("Watching my six, as always," Leo mutters fondly; Piper punches his shoulder, grinning); finding herself surrounded, and then getting herself _un_ -surrounded while Leo did his best impression of the Human Torch, wiping out the army and saving the town in the process.

Angie interrupts them then, wondering why most of her family members and two of her guests have been ensconced in one room for so long. Sometime during dinner, Piper hits on the idea of using Angie's family home, and other places like it, as safehouses for kids like Lena, if they ever have to be evacuated because of HYDRA. (When they very carefully bring it up with Angie's great-grandfather, whose name is _Alexander_ and who's apparently the alpha, he agrees without a second's thought. "If it's to keep Angela and her friends safe," he explains, "I'd do just about anything—depending, of course, on whatever it is you two _aren't_ telling me.") 

(Under Director Fury's one good eye, the Exodus Protocol is established as the highly-classified evacuation plan for any minor, sixteen years old or younger, associated with SHIELD, in the event that its roster of agents is compromised and the agents' families are targeted. The Wallace property and the buildings on it becomes the first official safehouse of Exodus. Three more are added to the list within the week, all belonging to werewolf packs on the East Coast, as a personal favor to Alpha Wallace.)

* * *

Alexander starts putting out feelers to the rest of the American and Canadian packs. Twice a month, like clockwork, Ricardo and his colleagues send them all the information that's come their way, especially where it concerns the ongoing fight for Central America. A carefully-worded letter to a Mozambican actor Mr. McLean worked with once garners a twenty-page treasure trove of a reply, disguised as ramblings about a planned fantasy novel. 

Leo and Piper buy a map, the big kind that takes up the largest section of wall in their dorm room that isn't occupied by furniture. Green tacks mark enclaves, starting with the compound in Richmond and the still-rebuilding tract of land in Oaxaca. News of battles like the one in Oaxaca introduces red tacks to the map, color-coded with a cheap marker to denote the _when_ and the _who_. Pieces of string sketch out alliances and shared history, until it's practically taken over their room. (By that point, Angie's the only classmate who _doesn't_ think they've lost it.)

* * *

"More information for you," Angie announces, dropping a bunch of file folders on the table in the corner and nearly knocking Leo's cause-and-effect dominoes over. "Sorry, Leo." 

"'S fine," Leo grunts. 

“Why is it so _clean_ in here?” Angie wonders, walking over to the map on the wall. She folds her arms and stares at him, smiling. “All right, who are you and what have you done with the real Leo Valdez?” 

“Because Día de los Muertos is coming up and I don’t want Mom to think that I’m not keeping my room clean?” He look up at Angie and shrugs. “I’ve got the cleaning part done; I’m just procrastinating on setting up the ofrenda.” 

Explanations done, Leo rolls his chair over to the table and picks up the folder on top. "San Francisco, huh?" He opens it. "I feel like this would be _so much easier_ if we could ask Ms. Weaver to ask..." 

_"Don't_ even _think_ about that," Angie orders, pointing her marker at him like a wand. "You _know_ Rule One, Leo." 

"Stay hidden, stay quiet, stay safe," he recites like he's Pavlov's dog. He sighs "Which means we can't talk about this with _any_ norms..." 

"...unless we trust them implicitly," Piper finishes with them from the bathroom. "Am I required?" she yells. 

"Put some clothes on; Angie's here," Leo yells back without looking. 

"Just because you're a stumble-in, that's no excuse not to learn the Rules," Angie tells him as Piper joins her, helping compare the newest list to the map. "That goes for you, too, Missy," she says to Piper, mock-severely. 

"Mm-hmm." She nods. "Oh, _crap_." 

"What? What's up?" Leo quickly rolls over to them; they're both staring at the pieces of paper they're using to track the number of casualties. 

"The death toll we know about just hit one million."

* * *

They forward whatever information they can, pass along warnings and intelligence, establish contact between the enclaves that haven't yet been forced into it. They talk to anyone who's willing talk to _them_ , while the Wars rage on. 

Everything that happened in Oaxaca? It wasn't just a one-off event. 

The information they gather paints a dismal picture: Humanity's oldest enemies are coming out of the shadows, each time turned back mostly by luck, costing thousands of lives at a time. The Wars have been going on for _six years_ , one right after another, in almost every part of the world. When people start sitting down and comparing notes, the list of the dead stretches quickly into the millions; the Wars caught most of them by surprise. 

"The Isolation was supposed to save lives," an old woman tells them, "and it _did,_ for three hundred years. But when the Wars started... it became our death sentence." 

Very few of the people that Leo and Piper meet are even aware that those like them aren't the only things supernatural in the world. None of the various communities and networks have worked together in _centuries,_ until the Wars forced them to. 

Kids with powers rarely make it to adulthood; adults like Gina and Ricardo are the exception, not the rule, and from what Leo and Piper and their people can piece together, things were _worse_ before the Isolation. 

(Alexander gets his throat torn out during a fight in New Mexico. Ricardo dies in a battle on the Yucatán Peninsula; Leo and Piper don't find out for another two weeks. The actor in Mozambique and his entire family go down when the enclave they're living in falls. Not a single person survives.) 

(Angie's surviving cousins take over forwarding the information that Leo and Piper gather. Ricardo's replacement, a bubbly young woman who Piper vaguely remembers meeting, introduces herself as Nayeli's niece over Skype. A nephew of Mr. McLean's actor friend, who lives in Angoche, contacts them after reading through his uncle's correspondence.)

People ask them to help fight, then to help with the support staff once word of their age gets around. ("We _try_ not to let kids fight," a teenage girl tells them, handing them both knives. "Fourteen's the minimum age. But with the grown-ups almost gone, well..." She shrugs. "We don't exactly have a choice.")

The entire supernatural world is at war, and there's _nothing_ they can do about it.

* * *

"Textbooks," Piper announces, dropping a pile of them on the table next to Leo's bed. 

"Fifteen pages ahead of you," Leo says, holding up his own textbook before turning to page sixteen. 

"Great minds, huh?" Piper picks up a history textbook from the top of the pile. "Scoot over." 

Leo does. 

She climbs in next to him. "Mm, you're _warm_ ," she mumbles, flipping it open to a section on Greek mythology. "Wow, look at this ugly face," she remarks, leaning into him. 

"Hephaestus," Leo reads aloud. "Who's that, the god of cowboys?" 

Piper knocks her elbow into his ribcage. "Have some _respect,"_ she laughs. "This says he's the god of the forge, god of fire... hey, _that_ sounds like someone I know..." 

"Who? Aaron from down the hall?" Leo teases. She elbows him again. "At least it sounds _interesting. _I'm stuck with _Friedrich Hayek___ , whoever that is." 

"Twentieth-century economist, won the 1974 Nobel Prize," Piper says idly, turning to the next page. 

"Show-off," Leo mutters. He wriggles in place, forcing her a little closer to the edge. 

"You know you love me." Piper shifts around, making Leo scoot back. 

"'Course I do," he retorts. "You have a perfectly loveable face." 

She laughs, bright and clear, at him. 

**2011**

The first week of 2011 finds them on a battlefield in Oklahoma. None of their parents know where, exactly, they are. Supposedly, Piper is visiting her Great-Aunt Naomi for the last part of winter break, dragging Leo along as always. He helps out in the med tents, cauterizing wounds and cheering patients up, while she volunteers with what's now called the _Bucket Brigade,_ putting out fires on the battlefield and carrying the wounded away. 

(Great-Aunt Naomi is there, too; that part's not a lie. They're both working in the med tents, but where Leo is putting his classroom first-aid lessons to the test, she's got going-on-seven-decades of living on and then running a ranch to put to good use, going from stitching up cattle and horses and sheepdogs to stitching up humans as easy as breathing. Leo thinks he's found a new favorite person.)

A camp has sprung up around the battle, like they’ve seen in other places under siege, offering food, medical help, and spare weapons to the fighters. 

"May I sit here?" the white-haired man standing over Leo asks, as Leo is taking a break and nibbling on some of the food the locals have cooked and brought to the camp. He shrugs. The man sits down next to him, sighing as his bones creak. "Oof! Not as young as I used to be." He quirks an eyebrow at Leo. "If you don't mind me asking, you're Maya, aren't you?" 

"Got it in one." Leo downs another gulp of water. "Maya, Spanish, healthy amount of Aztec, some Zapotec, some Mixtec, some West African, maybe some East Asian, don't really know what else." 

"I wasn't aware we had reinforcements from south of the border." 

Leo furrows his forehead, a little offended. "Actually, I'm from Houston. I'm _Mexican-American,_ not Mexican. I'm fourth- or fifth-generation."

The man holds up his hands. "My apologies." He reaches for the salt shaker, douses his baked potato in salt, and then returns it to the center of the table before he speaks again. "Why are you here, then?" 

"My sister's Cherokee— _honorary_ sister. She was asked to come; she brought me with her." 

The man's face lights up. "OH! You're Mr. Valdez, then? Piper's brother, the pyrokinetic?" He sticks out a hand. "Chad Smith, Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation." 

Leo shakes it. "Leo Valdez, no impressive titles." 

"Give it time, kid, I've heard about your work in Virginia. And Oaxaca, of course, though I haven't heard _much._ It seems no one knows what actually happened there."

Leo pushes back the memory of screaming and ignores the implied question. 

"That reminds me, did you meet a woman named Nayeli while you were there? Nayeli Díaz? I haven't heard from her in months!" 

"Nayeli's dead," Leo tells him bluntly. "Her and the entire enclave in Santiago Ixtayutla. The entire area was destroyed. We were some of the only survivors.”

Smith rears back in shock. "I'm so sorry for your loss," he says when he regains his voice. 

Leo looks down and find a rock to kick at. "I didn't know them that well." 

"Yes, but—"

Great-Aunt Naomi saves him then, poking her head into the food tent. "Valdez, we need you back on cauterizing," she orders. Leo scrambles up, nodding to Chief Smith before following her to the med tent. As soon as his hands are scrubbed, he's back in the new-patient section, using his powers to cauterize wounds and joking with the patients who are still awake. 

The mayor of Tulsa gives as good as he gets, in between complaining about the tourniquet on his leg. A woman whose ranch borders Great-Aunt Naomi's rolls her eyes and huffs while Leo stitches up her hand. An author from San Antonio and a Catholic priest from Bixby get into a debate on the differences between Classical and Biblical mythology, which starts the priest talking about the history of the Bible; Leo gets a _very_ entertaining lesson about the _very bad_ job that King James's lackeys did while translating the Bible into English.

The rancher dies on the battlefield the very next day. Two days later, the priest comes back, once again as a patient; Leo nearly throws up at the sight of blood and pus oozing out of his clawed-up back. 

"I don't think the Lord will mind," the priest rasps out with a smile,"that I died fighting someone else’s demons." Handing Leo a pocket-sized Bible, he says, "And you _are_ Catholic... will you help me with my last rites?" 

He walks Leo through the parts he can do as a lay person, even as his voice gets fainter and fainter. Once it's done, and his voice has given out entirely, Leo opens the Bible to a random page and reads out loud, until the old man's life silently slips out of his body. 

Leo reaches over and closes his eyes.

* * *

2011 turns into a blur of battles and blood, mixed with the utter _normalcy_ of school and family and classwork. 

They turn fourteen on a class field trip somewhere in Canada, the one where Aaron takes a bullet to the hip and Terrence nearly punches one of the doctors, trying to see his boyfriend. (Ms. Weaver grumps for a week, partly out of worry and partly because of the sheer amount of paperwork she has to do as a result.) Come spring break, they’re caught up in another war, this time as soldiers now that they’re old enough. They come out of that one with a bullet in Leo's shoulder and two more safe houses for Exodus; Leo counts that as a win. 

The reputation that Mr. Smith predicted grows into something they can't control, and they're called more and more to fight for people that they don't even know, everywhere in the world. The Wars take their blood, and their friends, and their innocence; the battlefield grinds them up and spits them out, as soldiers, as heroes, as members of a generation at war. 

(Unfortunately, that reputation is no help at all when A. C. and Uncle Clint get called out to middle-of-nowhere New Mexico to deal with an 0-8-4; no matter how much they ~~beg~~ ask politely, Fury _still_ won't let them go.)

* * *

"Leo? Good, you came." Ms. Weaver gestures for him to sit down. He does, carefully—even with attention from a battlefield biokinetic and some of SHIELD's best doctors, his arm is still in a sling and needs careful handling. "How's the shoulder?" 

"Healing." He shrugs with his right arm, as if to say, "What can you do?" 

She smiles at him. “My sister, Anne, told me that you’re interested in going to the Academy of Science and Technology once you’ve graduated. Is that right?” 

Grinning, he nods. “Yes, ma’am!” 

“Sci-Tech will be lucky to have you.” She opens the file folder on the table. “Now, your grades in Math and Basic Engineering are excellent, but your overall grade in Chemistry needs to be brought up just a bit by the end of senior year if you want to get in. You also have a _lot_ of absences—Cadet McLean does, as well—but Agent Coulson has informed me that that’s because of trouble with your biological family. Is that correct, _Cadet_ Valdez?” 

He forces himself to stay relaxed and nods again. “Yes, ma’am.” 

"Leo?" Her voice is soft. "Is there anything you want to talk about?" 

_Stay hidden, stay quiet, stay safe,_ he thinks. He swallows. "No, ma'am."

* * *

By the end of June—one year since Oaxaca—they have almost the complete picture. 

There have been thirty-nine wars, covering over a hundred mythological traditions; five more are ongoing, and a sixth seems to be looming. 

Leo can't even look at the list of the dead, now—it's far too depressing. It's not even a list anymore, really: when the list of names got too long for their dorm-room wall, Leo set up a database of names and dates and cause-of-death, so others could visit it and add to it as needed. All that's left on the piece of paper on the wall is a number that changes every day. 

Thirty million confirmed dead, as of July 2011. 

Possibly twice as many. 

Sixty fucking million people _dead,_ over the course of seven years. 

Two-thirds of them lived in enclaves that no longer exist. The rest—norms and preters alike—died in battle or in the crossfire, most of them adults or in their late teens. The ones who survive go to fight for others; most of them aren't quite as lucky a second time. 

Even with better communication, even with better intel, even with the death rate tapering off—by the time July rolls into August, most of the grown-ups are _gone._

* * *

In the first week of August, as the temperature in Washington _finally_ starts to cool off from July's hundred-degree highs, someone shows up at the apartment's front door, looking for Piper. 

"She's not here," Leo tells the young woman. He lets her in anyway, and makes her a cup of ice water, because she _really_ looks like she needs it. 

"Thanks," she says, once she's cooled off. "Sorry to show up like this, but I was kind of... told to come here." She pulls a light blue envelope out of her pocket and sets it on the table, so that Leo can read the name _(Mary Poser),_ address, and _DO NOT OPEN until **July 30th, 2011, mid-afternoon**_ written on the back in carefully neat handwriting. (The handwriting rings a bell in Leo's head; he ignores it.) 

Inside the envelope is another envelope, reading, _Deliver to Piper McLean on **August 3rd, 2011**_ , along with A. C.'s address. The note inside is addressed to _him,_ though, as if the sender know he’d be the one to read it. 

_Leo—Please contact these people. They and their associates will be able to help with the remaining wars._

_By the way—good luck. With everything._

* * *

After Mary leaves and before Audrey and A. C. get home from their date, Leo calls Piper at her dad’s house in California. They divvy up the list of names and telephone numbers and start calling them. 

The people on the list are random, run-of-the-mill psychics and magic-users—genetic lottery winners with no ties to mythology or folklore, who’ve spent the last decade or so quietly networking with the help of the Internet. Best of all, most of them are untouched by the Wars. 

By mid-August, not only has their fighting force tripled, but the Wars seem to be coming to some sort of close. The only sectors that _haven’t_ gone to war yet are the ones that are the farthest away from where the Wars started—most of the U. S. and Canada, and the southern half of South America—and the ones that are the strongest and the deepest-embedded in the modern world—the Hindu, Shinto, Greco-Roman, and Egyptian pantheons, mostly. 

(By the end of the year, that’s changed: the Hindu and Shinto Wars have run their course, the Greeks and Romans are getting closer to the end of theirs, and sometime around Christmas the Egyptian pantheon gets a rude awakening of the proto-apocalyptic variety with Set's attempt at world domination.) 

By the end of the year, the average death toll in each war has dropped from the hundreds of thousands to the hundreds. The fallen enclaves start to rebuild, and the preters themselves start to recover. Just a year and a half after Oaxaca, the supernatural world has gone from thousands of disconnected, disorganized individual groups to a loose network that criss-crosses the _world_ , regardless of oceans and national borders. 

Not only that, but Leo, Piper and Helena are _probably_ going to be getting a new baby sibling soon; not even a possible move to Portland and A. C. and Uncle Clint getting stuck babysitting scientists in New Mexico can put a damper on _that_. 

**2012**

It's March, and A. C. gets enough time off from the babysitting job in New Mexico to make a short visit to D. C., and he comes home yelling about how they _found Captain America— **alive** —_ and of course Leo and Piper tease him about being a fanboy, and tease him even more when he trips over one of the boxes in the front hallway because he's distracted. 

(Leo and Piper may or may not be just as excited as he is. Don't tell anyone.) 

It's April, and for the second time in two years, Leo is packing up everything he owns, this time to be shipped across the country to effing _Oregon_ , and seriously, what's a desert kid like him doing in the Pacific Northwest? (He looks it up. Portland actually gets _less_ annual rainfall than Houston does. Less than D. C., even. He chooses to ignore this fact.) 

Leo meets the new neighbors—Robin-across-the-street, Mrs. Watson next door, the MacReady family, the Yung twins. Most of them are renters, and a lot of them are college students going to Portland State. 

(On Wednesday, Lena insists on going to the Washington Park playground with him and Piper, even though it's a twenty- or thirty-minute walk. It's worth it, though, watching her laugh as she runs around. They even run into Lena's soon-to-be fourth-grade teacher, who does a visible double-take when Leo introduces the three of them with three different last names.) 

It's the kind of neighborhood Leo can see himself settling down in, someday, especially now that his family is here. 

Someday.

* * *

Then it's May, and the world is ending.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, Leo. You should really know better than to get your hopes up. 
> 
> Spanish translations:  
> ¿Hola? ¿Hay alguien allí?—Hello? Is there anyone there?
> 
> ¡Estamos aquí! ¿Dónde está? Necesita ayuda?—We're here! Where are you? Do you need help?
> 
> ¡Sí! Mi pierna es atrapado.—Yes! My leg is trapped. 
> 
> Nosotros se encontraremos. Y se ayudaremos.—We'll find you. And help you. 
> 
> Podemos mover esta.—We can move this.
> 
> Gracias.—Thank you.
> 
> No se duerme. Nosotros tenemos que salir. Me llamo Leo. ¿Y su?—Don't fall asleep. We have to get out. My name's Leo. And you?
> 
> Me llamo Ricardo. ¿Y quién está?—My name is Ricardo. And who is this? 
> 
> Está es mi hermana, Piper. Ella no habla Español.—This is my sister, Piper. She doesn't speak Spanish.
> 
> Está bien. Yo no hablo Inglés.—It's fine. I don't speak English.
> 
> Soy el primo de Diego, Ana, y Julia.—I'm Diego, Ana, and Julia's cousin. 
> 
> ¡Julia! ¡La mujer más bonita en Mexíco!—Julia! The most beautiful woman in Mexico! 
> 
> Lo siento, pero ella es casada.—Sorry, but she's married. 
> 
> Yo sé. Ahora yo puedo sólo soñar.—I know. Now I can only dream. 
> 
> ¿Puede andar?—Can you walk?
> 
> Sí, sí... no.—Yes, yes... no. 
> 
> ¿Está bien?—Are you okay?
> 
> Estamos en el octavo piso.—We're on the eighth floor.
> 
> No pensé tus parientes tenemos—tuvieron—poderes.—I didn't think your relatives have—had—powers.
> 
> No, ellos no tuvieron poderes. Pero yo hago.—No, they didn't. But I do.
> 
> Sí, por supuesto.—Yes, of course.
> 
> ¡Corre!—Run!
> 
> Americanos—Americans
> 
> Tú eres muy valiente, nene; ahora flexiona tu muñeca para mi.—You're very brave, kiddo; now flex your wrist for me.
> 
> ¡Lanceros! ¡Dispara!—Spear throwers! Fire!
> 
> ¡Arqueros!—Archers!
> 
> Mijo—My son. 
> 
> Chula—Cutie
> 
> Ofrenda: Literally "offering"; altar used by Mexicans and those of Mexican descent to honor and welcome their deceased relatives before and during Día de los Muertos. 
> 
> Día de los Muertos/Day of the Dead: Mexican holiday celebrating and honoring the deceased. Occurs in the same time frame as Halloween, Samhain, and All Souls' Day. It's believed that deceased relatives are able to visit during the holiday, hence the need for a clean house (or in this case, dorm room). 
> 
> Mythical creatures:  
> Nahuals: Shape-shifters, can be good or evil.  
> The "dog-like creature" is an ahuizotl.  
> Werewolves: Largely European shape-shifters associated with the full moon. 
> 
> Pyrokinetic: Someone who can manipulate fire and heat  
> Biokinetic: Someone who can manipulate living tissue in order to accelerate healing 
> 
> Real-life cameos:  
> Chad Smith, Chief of the Cherokee Nation from 1999 to 2011.  
> Dewey F. Bartlett, Jr., mayor of Tulsa, Oklahoma, from 2009 to 2016.  
> Rick Riordan, who walked onscreen and promptly started talking about Greek mythology (and tried to create a paradox, too, but decided to stick with writing the Tres Navarre books instead of writing down his son's bedtime stories.) 
> 
> Other notes: 
> 
> It took me _ten hours_ over the course of two days to figure out exactly how the Wars happened, what order they happened in, how they spread, and the timeline, all while growing steadily more pissed at myself, the universe, and the concept of research in general. I'll probably post the end result over in Dust and Gold, in case anyone else wants to use a similar concept. 
> 
> The priest being from Bixby, Oklahoma, is a shout-out to the [Midnighters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnighters_trilogy) trilogy, also known as my third great literary obsession and the one that introduced me to fandom. 
> 
> A 6.2 earthquake occurred at roughly 2:20 a. m. local time on June 30, 2010, centered a few miles southeast of Villa Nueva and several miles west of the much larger town of Santiago Ixtayutla in Oaxaca, Mexico. This will probably be one of the only times I give a real-life event a supernatural cause. 
> 
> Next up: New York is invaded by aliens, my obsession with babies makes another appearance, Sitwell is a dick, Leo falls down the Grand Canyon, Tony screws up, and Piper gets grounded. In other words, just business as usual. 
> 
> Still working on Coulson's fic, and I'm not working very hard, either. Don't expect it to be posted on time.


	3. war hath no fury

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "War hath no fury like a non-combatant."—Charles Edward Montague
> 
> The Battle of New York, the summer after, and the events of The Lost Hero. 
> 
> For anyone confused by the title, no, you're not hallucinating. Until a few minutes ago, this quote was the title for Chapter Two. I decided that this quote worked much better here, and that I really should have gone with the title I originally had for Chapter Two when I posted it, so I swapped the quotes and renamed both chapters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings: Past child abuse, PTSD in a child, depictions of violence, child characters as soldiers, implicit racism, mostly-offscreen kidnapping, offscreen nightmare, onscreen flashback. 
> 
> Content warnings: Swearing, as always. 
> 
> I haven't seen The Avengers in several months, and it’s been even longer since I reread The Lost Hero, so some things are either skimmed over or left out entirely. Also, modifying a fair amount of Lost Hero to fit with the characterization on this. 
> 
> Thank you to Nobodystormcrow, Addie_Lover_of_Stories, and CallToMuster for commenting! 
> 
> My depiction of the Battle of New York owes a great deal to BairnSidhe's (HI MOM!) [Chapel of the Damned](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6045433). 
> 
>  
> 
> ~~this chapter is _just_ May to December 2012 and it's six thousand words long holy crap~~

**2012**

_It's May, and the world is ending._

Clint's no longer under mind control, but they have no idea where Thor and Banner are, and Leo and Piper aren't even supposed to _be_ here, and all Leo can think of is Nick Fury telling them that A. C. just came _this close_ to dying. 

Beside him, Piper scrubs at her hands with a wet wipe, trying to get the blood off. She still has tear stains on her cheeks. Leo know he does, too. A. C.— _his dad_ almost _died_ , without a damn thing either of his kids could do to stop it. 

Director Fury gives the order for the grown-ups to get ready to fight; Leo and Piper get up to follow them. "McLean, Valdez, you stay here." He levels his gaze at them. "And don't you even _think_ about slipping off. You are staying here, on the bridge of the helicarrier, where it's _safe_ , until the battle is over. Do you understand me?" 

They try to stare him down; unsuccessfully, judging by the smirk he quickly erases. "I need a _yes,_ Cadets." 

Leo speaks first. "What makes you think the Helicarrier is any safer?" 

Piper picks up his train of thought immediately. "This thing's dead in the air. We don't know how long we have until it crashes. A crashing ship is no place for a pair of fifteen-year-olds." 

The Director— _not_ their Uncle Nick, not now—stares them down. "Neither is a battlefield." 

"With all due respect, sir—" Leo starts. 

" _No_ , Cadet Valdez. That is _final_." 

_"With all due respect,_ sir," Piper emphasizes. "Kids like us? Preter kids?" 

"We're fighting for our lives from the day we're born," Leo finishes. 

"The _entire supernatural world_ has been trying to stave off the end of the world for _eight years,"_ Piper hisses. "We walked right into the middle of it." They're keeping their voices down, well aware of the ones nearby who don't— _can't_ know. 

"This _isn't_ our first battle."

"It isn't even our second, or our third." 

"We _know_ what we're getting into." 

Fury steeples his fingers. "Do you?" 

Piper hesitates; nods. "Yes." 

"You know exactly what we're capable of. Do you really want to keep us on the bench?" 

"We're combat-capable, and we both already have PTSD." 

He leans forward. "If the World Security Council finds out—"

Piper shrugs. "Then they don't find out." 

"We'll keep our identities secret until we're older—" 

"—and by the time we're adults, it won't matter anymore. And if anyone tries to bring the heat down on _you_ —" 

"Then we disobeyed orders." 

"It's hardly your fault." 

"Besides, you're our _uncle_." 

"You'd want your niece and nephew to stay as far away from the battle as possible. Right?" 

"Yeah, exactly." 

The Director looks both of them in the eye, and whispers, "Barton, Romanoff, and Rogers are taking a Quinjet to New York. If you hurry, you'll be able to catch them. When you get there, stay hidden, until you're in the air. Pretend you stowed away. Understand that?" 

They both nod. 

"Now _go."_ He raises his voice, back to a normal tone. "That's _final,_ kids, now get out of my sight. Go—make yourselves useful, or something. Okay?" 

Leo and Piper hurry off, hand in hand.

* * *

At Stark Tower, while Tony distracts Loki (and seriously, there are _Norse gods_ now, what the _fuck_ ), Piper suits up as Silver Dragon and tosses Leo the flame-patterned Spandex monstrosity that Tony made for him. Once they're dressed as respectable superheroes, Piper gives him a ride to street level—because Loki apparently threw Tony through a _window_ (does Tony have a single bone of self-preservation in his entire body?) and flying through the broken penthouse window and down to the ground is much faster than taking the elevator—and she jokes that she's lucky he's scrawny. Leo tries not to take offense. Instead, she deposits him in the street, and he grabs her (armored) hand and squeezes it for what might be the last time, and she gently squeezes back before launching herself into the sky. 

And then the battle starts, and he doesn't have time to be offended. The world is ending, and New York is fighting back. 

Even as SHIELD agents herd civilians into stairwells and basements and the subway system, some take up arms against the invaders. Leo can't process half the things he sees, but there's women in silver with bows and arrows holding the line around the Empire State Building, students in bright orange shirts wielding swords and daggers and students in bathrobes carrying staffs and wands just _pouring_ in from Long Island, teenagers and young adults in street clothes drawing diagrams and speaking words that stop the aliens in their tracks. In Central Park and along the riverbanks, young women melt out of trees and haul themselves dripping from the river to join the fight. Centaurs in Carmen Miranda hats smash aliens under their hooves. Somewhere near Rockefeller Center, he sees an old man leap off the ground as a human and land as a mountain lion, trapping an invader between its paws. At one point, Leo finds himself back-to-back with a young woman with glowing red eyes who swipes at an alien with a wolf's claws one second before punching it with a very _human_ hand the next. Leo aims a blast of fire at the alien's eyes, and she finishes it off with her claws. She nods at Leo, her inhuman features melting into human, and she and her brother go looking for more monsters. 

"Fight now, think later," an elderly man with a sword tells Leo when he pauses a second too long. The soccer mom nearby nods in agreement, otherwise a whirling dervish of flashing blades and Chitauri blood. 

A white man in impressive Viking armor carrying a battle-ax stalks Hell's Kitchen. A black college student mows down aliens with a sawed-off shotgun before mowing them over—literally—with her wheelchair. A middle-aged Hispanic matron checks the safety on a rifle that _cannot_ be legal before unloading the magazine into the Chitauri surrounding her, eyes and arms always steady. Leo shares a nod with one of her cohorts, a Japanese man whose wife, he explains, is holding the containment line to the north with a group of other shape-shifters. He's human, but there are plenty of humans in this fight, whether they fight with guns or knives or their own bodies, whether they wear street clothes or superhero costumes, whether they're in the thick of battle or on the edge or manning tables a block away from the combat zone, passing out water bottles and fiber bars and weaponry to weary fighters. 

As the battle wears on, more and more civilians come out of hiding. Hawaiian-shirted tourists use whatever they can get their hands on to fight. Students from NYU and Columbia University bash heads in with their textbooks. (Leo thinks that they're enjoying it a bit too much, destroying textbooks that they'll just have to replace, but it seems to be very cathartic.) Whenever a child runs into the battle, a human chain forms to get them through the line and over to one of the supply areas, although that one kindergartner with the bathrobe people who's screaming "DIE!" and hitting aliens on the butt with her staff apparently gets a pass. Medical personnel—EMTs, med students, civilian volunteers—mark themselves by tying whatever they can find around their wrist. They weave between spells and weapons and alien attacks to carry the wounded and exhausted off the battlefield, and Leo has never been prouder of his country. 

Whenever Leo needs to catch his breath, he fades back through the containment line to do his time at one of the supply tables. Here, outside of the battle, members of the National Guard chat with young men who have goat legs instead of pants. A blonde teenager—who Leo recognizes as one of the people Piper called in—stands with her face upturned as a centaur in an "I Heart New York" shirt dumps a water bottle on her head, and he notices that she's controlling the water so it doesn't splash anyone else or get wasted on the ground. It looks like the deal-with-it-later acceptance of the combat zone's weirdness extends to the civilian side of things. 

Most of the tables are manned by children, whose parents and older siblings are busy fighting, or by the injured and exhausted, with people from the med tents to keep them there so they won't try to slip back into the battle. Leo passes out weapons and bullets and reclaimed arrows to anyone who's run out, chats up a few pretty girls, and heads back into the fray when he's got his breath back. 

"Guys, we got incoming," Tony says over the Avengers comm channel, and Leo jolts, because he's gotten used to getting his news from word-of-mouth or from Hank running the radio broadcast and his small army of grandchildren. 

"What do you mean?" Leo looks up, expecting one of those space-whales to appear through the portal. He's ended up near Stark Tower, so he has a decent view, but before he can get a good look, a member of the group he's fighting with now yells a warning and he's back to fighting aliens. 

"I mean," Tony says testily, "that Fury's just informed me that we have a nuclear missile heading for Manhattan." 

"You've got it, right?" Cap asks over the line. Tony barely has time to grunt in assurance before Piper cuts in with a, "You won't make it in time." 

"What?! What do you mean, I won't—" 

"If you're thinking what I'm thinking, then you're too far away. You don't have enough time to get it through and get back before Tasha closes it." 

Leo has no idea what they're talking about, but Natasha says, "Guys, I've got the scepter. Should I close it?" 

"No!" Tony and Piper both yell, and go back to arguing. 

"I've got the missile," Piper says, "and I know just where to put it." 

All at once, Leo sees what she's planning. "Piper," he croaks and it comes out half-dead and already heavy with grief, because it's been a long hard day and it seems to be catching up to him all at once. 

"I know what I have to do," she says, and her voice is cracking. 

He has to ask. "Are you sure?" 

"Yeah. I'm sure." She doesn't sound sure, not by a long shot, but Leo accepts her answer and starts calculating her timing, letting the fighters around him keep him from being attacked. He stands stock-still, rattling off numbers, eyes trained on the sky even after JARVIS informs them that Piper's turned off her comms. 

Two minutes pass before Piper flies into view, heading for the portal, and seconds pass before she vanishes forever. 

Leo falls to his knees. 

He starts counting the seconds, helplessly (his soul feels like it's tearing itself in two), as if he's five years old again (the rest of the Avengers are filling his comm with their yells) and his mom is teaching him how to tell how far away a storm is (the aliens are all collapsing and he doesn't bother to notice) but he doesn't know why (Tasha says that she's closing the gate) he's remembering that now—

Sunlight glints off silver paint, and she's falling. 

"Why isn't he slowing down?" someone demands to know, and Leo's joy turns to lead and he doesn't bother to correct them when he takes off running for where he thinks she's going to land—

Hulk beats him there, leaping up and catching her, using the side of a building (the owners are going to be _pissed_ ) to slow their fall. 

They land hard, Hulk still cradling Piper in his arms, and Leo rolls her to the ground and tries to give her CPR through the suit. He's not thinking straight, he _knows_ he's not thinking straight, but it's worth a shot, right? 

JARVIS tells Leo that her heart stopped while she was in the portal. 

Leo tells JARVIS to fuck off. 

JARVIS tells Leo that her heart has been stopped for forty-one seconds. 

Leo tells JARVIS, once again, to fuck off. 

Then Hulk roars, and Piper's eyes fly open with a gasping breath, and the lead in Leo's stomach turns back into joy. "What the hell?" she gasps out. "What just happened?" Her tone turns into a warning. "Please tell me nobody kissed me." 

"We won," Captain America says, looking up into the sky. 

"Your heart stopped beating, Piper, you were _dead_." Tears are running down Leo's face as he tells her, and she brings a hand up to cup his cheek. 

He laughs when Tony asks if anyone's up for shawarma, and they troop off, exhausted but happy, to meet up with the other three at the shawarma place Tony saw. (They stop off at a med table, though, to get Piper checked over, at Leo's insistence. Piper flips him off. The blonde boy in an orange shirt waves them away, too swamped with berating the fighters who didn't get their injuries checked out earlier for another new patient.) 

(They make a stop at the Tower, too, so Tony and Piper can get out of their suits and a de-Hulked Bruce Banner can borrow clothes from Tony.)

* * *

They're quickly hustled off to Walter Reed. 

The TV in Piper's hospital room is showing endless coverage of the invasion. The Battle of New York, they're calling it, and while Leo notices that everyone is talking about the Avengers, no one mentions the civilians who fought back with superpowers, as if by some unspoken agreement. He's glad for it, even as the newscasters speculate about his and Piper's identities. (At one news conference, some talk-radio jackass keeps insisting that Silver Dragon is male. Cap nearly punches him on national television. Tony actually does.)

* * *

"You earned them," Director Fury says. Leo stares down the badge in his hand, unable to look away from the black letters spelling out _Valdez, Leonardo T._

"Thank you, Sir," Piper says softly. "We're honored." 

Fury rises from his seat. "Normally, it's the handler who administers the oath," he tells them. "But under the circumstances..." 

Leo closes his eyes, letting the words wash over him, as he takes the oath he memorized years ago.

* * *

It's July, and Leo and Piper are staying with Tony and Pepper while they help rebuild New York. The days are a long blur of hammering, dust, and trying to keep the civilians from taking the bits and pieces of alien stuff they find home because _jeez,_ Martin, the CDC said that we're supposed to treat _all_ the alien stuff like it's a toddler covered in germs because do you _want_ to get sick with the alien stomach flu or something? (Leo personally thinks that it was a _really_ good idea to declare anything that came from the Chitauri as potentially infectious; some people don't care, though, and steal the stuff anyway. Idiots.)

* * *

It's almost August, and it's already been a long day when Piper's phone starts ringing. She ignores the glares, though, and tells the volunteer coordinator, "We have to go, our mom's in labor!" 

"Wait, what?" Leo nearly drops the board he's just picked up, and it's a good thing he doesn't because someone's foot is directly underneath it. "What was that?" 

Piper looks over at him, eyes wide. "Mom just went into labor!" 

"Oh, _shit!"_ , he exclaims, garnering cries of "Language!" from half a dozen volunteers. 

They're on the next plane out, courtesy of Aunt Pepper, and six hours later, Robin-across-the-street meets them at the gate. Audrey has long since been checked into the maternity ward at OHSU; Helena is asleep on a couch and Mrs. Watson is nose-deep in her tenth magazine of the day, judging by the pile beside her, by the time Leo and Piper scramble into the waiting room. 

"Family only," the nurse tries to tell them; "I'm her son; she's my sister," Leo snaps habitually, scrubbing his hands, "and _no,_ our father won't make it in time." The nurse, silenced, passes them gloves and hospital gowns and lets them into the delivery room. 

Leo spends ten minutes whisper-yelling at Uncle Nick and then at the doctors until they let them Skype A. C. on a big monitor on the wall (and Leo sees enough of A. C.'s hospital room to wonder where he _really_ is, because that doesn't look like Bethesda, and _definitely_ isn't Tahiti.) He doesn't have time to dwell on it, though, because the doctors are telling Mom to _push_ and suddenly he's holding six pounds and fourteen ounces of bloody, squalling baby. 

Her name is _Adelaide_ , for Audrey's great-grandmother; _Esperanza_ , for Leo's mother (and if he wipes a few tears from his eyes, no one has to know); and _Philippa_ , for Addy's own father, stuck on the other side of the country. The surname that goes on her birth certificate is _Nathan_ , just like her mother and older sister, so she'll be just that much safer. 

Said older sister is bouncing in her seat by the time she’s allowed into the recovery room, and Leo has to remind her three times to stay seated and support the baby's head (Audrey is out cold at this point, and Piper is napping, having hogged Addy for almost half an hour). "She's so _tiny,"_ Lena breathes. 

"I know, right?" Leo whispers, tracing his thumb over Addy's downy hair. She snuffles in her sleep, now clean and swaddled and happily fed. "Shh, it's okay, it's okay..." Addy quiets, mouthing at air, and Lena gives her to him and scoots over so Leo can sit down next to her. In this quiet, stolen moment, Leo can't take his eyes off of either of his sisters. With one arm carefully cradling Adelaide, and the other wrapped protectively around Helena's shoulders, he drifts off to sleep, ever-so-slightly snoring.

* * *

Three months after the Battle of New York, Fury calls them into his office for a briefing. "We've got a black-market ring running Chitauri tech out of an alternative school in Nevada. Congratulations. You just landed your first undercover job." 

It’s pretty much just a milk run. It _should_ be easy. _Should_ being the operative word, here. 

Sitwell is their handler, which fucking _sucks_ because he's _HYDRA_ , but he's also oblivious as shit when he isn't running point, which is helpful when they sneak off to go negotiate with the local werewolf pack about Exodus, but not so helpful when they get kidnapped by the smuggling ring and he doesn't notice until they've missed two check-ins and are about to miss a third. 

They have to rescue _themselves_ , using Piper's Jedi mind trick and Leo's tendency towards mad engineering ("Uh, dude? I don't know what you're thinking, but I'm pretty sure it's impossible to build an incendiary device out of wires and pocket lint... Oh. Huh. I guess it isn't."). Leo's got deep-tissue bruising in both wrists and Piper's starting to limp badly by the time they stumble into Sitwell's safehouse (the two of them have to stay in the Wilderness School's dorms, which, dorm food, _yuck)_ , and thankfully he’s already raised the alarm and several nearby agents have arrived to help plan a rescue, which is quickly diverted into providing medical attention and getting the investigation back on track, helped in no small part by the files they stole on their way out of the compound.

* * *

After the mission wraps up and they've turned in their (first!) mission reports, Leo and Piper are ordered to stay at Wilderness School for a few more weeks, so that no one connects them to the takedown of a black-market dealer that's been dominating the local gossip. Some of the pressure eases off, and they take the chance to push aside the college textbooks and work through a curriculum that they learned years ago, doing something easy for once. 

Sometimes, it's nice just to take a breath. (Even if that means ignoring all the homework that their teachers at Junior keep emailing them.)

* * *

Tuesday, December eighteenth, three days before Winter Break starts and the two of them head back to D. C. The tenth graders are on their way to the Grand Canyon, and apparently their teachers have no sense of distance, because what they claimed would be a one-hour drive is quickly shaping up to be three. (Leo may or may not be silently squeeing at the sheer cuteness of Piper and Jason holding hands while Jason sleeps. He ships them hard, okay?) 

Somewhere near the border, Jason wakes up, and it quickly becomes apparent that _something's wrong._ For one thing, he doesn't recognize them, not even when Leo jokes about making Jason do all of his homework, or when he launches a makeshift helicopter off the side of the Skywalk. For another, the memories of Jason that Leo calls up seem... Off. Shiny, like the tracker-jacker memories in _The Hunger Games._

Someone's messed with their minds. 

"Who are you, really?" he asks Jason, softly. 

Jason shakes his head. "I don't know." 

After that there's no time to process, no time to do anything but fight, because the Skywalk is cracking apart and Leo is falling off the edge of the Grand Canyon (and Piper is _never_ going to let him live that down) only to be rescued by Coach Hedge, who's apparently a _satyr_ (so _that's_ what those goat-legged guys are called!). They're stupid enough to let Coach Hedge get kidnapped right before Rainbow Tattoo Guy and the young woman who looks eerily like a blonde teenage version of Aunt Tasha show up, and then, like something straight out of a fairy tale, they're whisked them off to some place called _Camp Half-Blood_ (and yeah, that's the curl to Piper's lip that means that she's pissed). 

After they get a good dunking in the lake (Leo reminds himself to never be in a car with Scary-Blonde-Lady-Also-Known-As-Annabeth driving) and Piper's surreptitiously turned her earbud back on and let JARVIS know they're okay, Annabeth splits them up for the grand tour of camp. 

The two of them glance at each other, not entirely willing to be split up. Leo presses his index and middle fingers together and taps them once on the outside of his thigh before clenching his hand, as if holding a spoon. _See you at the next meal?_

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Piper shape her fingers into a sign-language _K_ , tapping it twice on her own leg. _Okay._ Still in their own private sign language, she adds, _I'll check in with Fury as soon as I can._ She pauses before adding, _Jane, too._

For a second the only _Jane_ Leo can think of is Dr. Jane Foster, one of the physicists Bruce wants to work with, now that he's not on the run. (She's also Thor's girlfriend, but no one else on the team has met her—she and her intern were knee-deep in research in Norway during the attack, Thor told them, and the U.S. airspace was closed by the time they found out.) Except that _Jane_ is also the name of Piper's Dad's current PA, who's lasted a whopping three months (and who's nowhere _near_ as competent as a PA as Aunt Pepper was, but that's beside the point); Piper must be calling her for news about her missing dad. _Good luck_ , he taps out, completely sincere. Then the blonde boy, Will, pulls him away.

* * *

Thursday night, somewhere in Colorado—a day and a half into the quest—Leo wakes up sweating. Piper's memory of the Chitauri ship, stretching out above her and backlit by an orange glow, fades from his mind's eye as he scrambles to sit up. 

Stone? Cool and solid, check. Sleeping bag—smooth, a bit cold, a little restricting. Check. 

Piper? 

... Not there. 

He feels around for her mind-glow and latches on, following it to the front of the cave, where Piper is curled into Jason's side. Jason looks up at him. "You too, huh?" he says. 

Leo nods, forgetting that he's barely visible to Jason in the dark. "Yeah." He sits down next to Piper. "You gave me your nightmare," he informs her. Piper mumbles at him with a hint of a growl. 

When he takes her hand, her fear floods into him: she's still in the grips of a flashback. In an endless loop, the ceiling is collapsing around them, burying them under stone and cutting them off from the grownups so they can't even shout for help. Leo has to remind himself over and over to gulp in air—clean air, not air choked with dust. He has to stay grounded: he's useless to Piper if her flashback drags him under. 

Leo's hand in hers breaks the loop, it seems, and the scene starts playing out the way it did in reality: the nahuals, the gun, Ricardo, the collapse; Piper seeing Leo go down under a pile of monsters, and finding herself in a losing battle with her own opponents, with no one who can come back her up. Then Leo, through Piper's eyes, sees himself go up in flames, and Piper redoubles her defense and presses it into an attack, unknowingly weaponizing her 'pathic powers just as much as her knife. When they're in the clear, as if by some unspoken agreement, they launch themselves into the main battle. The tide turns, and Piper's fear ebbs enough to let her go. 

Piper whimpers, burying her face in Jason's chest. Leo cards his fingers through her sleep-tangled hair and murmurs to her, until she's relaxed enough to go back to sleep. 

It's a while after her breathing evens out, before Jason breaks the silence. "So... you and Piper?" 

Leo knows what he's asking. "We're siblings," he says automatically, then chuckles. _"Honorary_ siblings, I mean—not biologically, or legally, but in every way that matters... she's my sister." 

"That sounds... kind of nice." Jason takes a breath. "What about the rest of your family?" 

"My bio-mom's dead. She died when I was eight." Leo pauses to let the familiar wave of grief roll past. "My adoptive family's great, though, and they're just as much Piper's family as they are mine. Audrey—our mom—she's a cellist, plays with the Portland Symphonic Orchestra—that's where we live right now. A. C. is our dad; he's a—" Leo cuts himself off. "He works for the government. He got... hurt... during the Battle of New York. He's still recovering, from that." Leo swallows back the memory of A. C. in his hospital bed at Walter Reed, surrounded by tubes and wires. "We have two little sisters, too—Lena's ten and Addy's four months old. I have pictures, if you want to see," he offers, spur of the moment. 

Jason opens his mouth to speak, then frowns. "But wait... weren't you at Wilderness School because you ran away? You sound like you really miss them." 

Leo stares out into the night. "I do. And I didn't. Run away from them, I mean—I ran away from _foster care_ six times, when I was eight. We just—fudged the truth a bit." He shrugs.

"But—why?" Jason is _definitely_ frowning, now. "Why were you at Wilderness School, if you didn't have to be there?" 

Leo starts to answer, then shuts his mouth and silently curses himself. _That was stupid_. He casts around for a believable answer until Jason shakes his head. "Never mind," he says. "I probably don't need to know." He hesitates, then: "Will you tell me about your sisters? Please?"

* * *

The next day is the solstice, and it's the day they defeat a giant and several Earthborn, rescue Piper's dad, knock a _second_ giant down a few pegs, and jailbreak the Queen of the Gods. It's also the day that the world _doesn't_ end, no matter what Porphyrion, the Mayan Calendar, or the Wars (now winding to a close) might say. 

Only one day after they get back from the quest, Leo is sitting at the Hephaestus table, sketching out ideas for the Argo II while JARVIS runs calculations in his ear. The dining pavillion is mostly empty, since all but the last few stragglers have gone to get ready for bed, and their table is missing one person anyway—while they were gone, Harley had gone home to Tennessee to visit his mother and little sister for Christmas. 

He doesn't want to say anything out loud—doesn't want to draw attention to his earbud—so all his acknowledgements and questions are murmured, disguised as him talking to himself while he works. JARVIS understands him well enough, and is keeping up a running monologue on the tension strengths of various type of wood, when suddenly, mid-sentence, he cuts himself off, and the earbud is instead filled with the horrible buzzing noise of static. 

Tapping the earbud to disconnect the call and then calling JARVIS back doesn't work. Neither does turning it off and on again. Leo takes it out to check for damage, then puts it back in, and _then_ lets himself panic. 

"Piper, can you call JARVIS?" he asks. Piper taps her own earbud, turning it on and then placing the call. "Nothing but static," she reports. 

"Fuck," Leo curses, glad that Harley isn't there. "Can you... Fuck. No. My laptop's in my go-bag, it's right here. Where's a power outlet? Chiron, are there any power outlets over here? Okay, good, there's one on the outside of the porch, that's real convenient. Don't worry, I just need to check on a friend." His laptop takes its own sweet time booting up. "What's the Wi-Fi password? Okay. I got it, and that works, so let me just check... Oh. Oh, fuck." He pauses, staring at the screen until it sinks in. "Oh, _fuck_." This is _bad_. "PIPER!" 

There's no time to worry about Tony, about Aunt Pepper, about _what the hell just happened_ as his hands fly across the keyboard. He can't do anything to help them from here. A fingerprint, an eye scan, three passwords and he's in, accessing JARVIS's main server farm at the Malibu mansion and staring in horror at the damage (thank God most of the farm is underground). Data packets fill one half of his screen while he accesses the Stark Tower servers with the other, and thank God they were built into the Tower, just not entirely activated yet. 

He's about to activate them. 

"You really shouldn't be doing that." 

He doesn't care who's talking. "Fuck you," he snaps, "I'm doing the equivalent of open-heart surgery on a _goddamned AI_ , so _fuck off_." 

The data starts transferring; he's not ready, he has to stop it. He sets up a program to scan for damaged or corrupted coding while it transfers, then lets the transfer program start running again, and it does, faster than before so that he's scrambling to keep up, to repair and rewrite each bit of code before the data settles fully into JARVIS's new brain at Stark Tower. 

Piper holds a water to his mouth. He drinks. 

Eventually rerouting the transfer through his laptop becomes too much for it; there's too much data to process, more than it can handle. Leo closes his eyes, breathes, and lets himself drop. 

He knows what technopathy is; this is something bigger. When Leo opens his eyes, he's standing in the data itself, letting his own brain be the processing power that he needs. There's no room; he _makes_ room, bundling up everything that makes him _him_ and gives it all to Piper, whose hands are on his shoulders, bare skin on bare skin, while the spark of connection and _what we never talk about_ bridges the gap, letting them store his mind inside hers. 

Somewhere inside this Gestalt of minds, of Jarvis's mind flowing through Leo-and-Piper on the way to its new home, he's vaguely aware of Jason kneeling next to them, anchoring them like he will forever...

...And Leo reaches out. 

The patchwork frame that will soon be JARVIS again— _we're all just metaphors here_ —stands before him, every packet of data rushing past him flaring and vanishing into the framework when it hits or turning brown and dead because something's wrong. He touches it, and it flexes and feels slimy like a membrane, shuddering under his fingers until it pushes out the nearest packet of damaged data, waiting for repair. 

Leo gets to work. 

It's almost too easy to lose track of time. 

_Why would Tony use multiple languages?_ he wonders distantly, but his mind has already made the switch the moment it recognizes the change, as easy as switching between English and Spanish and ASL, because he started learning how to code and how to hack when he was _nine_ , and never mind that Tony is one of the best hackers in the world, _so is he._

JARVIS has built-in tripwires, for anyone but Tony who tries to mess with his programming, but Leo knows how Tony gets around them, and here in the space where metaphors are more than metaphors it's as easy as stepping over actual tripwires as he walks around the frame. The membrane is shuddering under his hands, and he realizes that that's JARVIS _breathing_ , and it does make a little bit of sense, because the only frame of reference Tony has for an independent mind is one that's intrinsically tied to a body (Piper sends him a wave of thought that translates to _psychics know better, eh?_ ), so of course JARVIS would have a simulacrum of one, with rhythms resembling a heartbeat and pulse and the diaphragm's contractions. 

"Shh, you're all right, you'll all right," he soothes as one code packet is kept from slotting in correctly, snagged on one of the veinlike threads that's appeared in his weaving. It frees itself as the weft lines shift and slide around the warp (and when did the metaphor switch to weaving? He doesn't know how to weave. He's probably been reading too much Tamora Pierce. Sandry's always been his favorite, though that one scene always reminds him way too much of Oaxaca.) 

Outside, in his real body, he can hear Harley talking to JARVIS, which means he's talking to Leo because JARVIS isn't back online yet, and why is Harley talking to JARVIS anyway? Leo's body is running on autopilot, listening to Harley talking through the static and guiding him through repairing the Iron Man suit (and he thinks Iron Man and Tony Stark are two different people and if Leo were himself he'd find that hilarious). 

His hands, neurons, his mind itself are firing all at once, finding and fixing and freeing every single line of code as he/they rebuild JARVIS's mind until the patchwork framework is a shining mosaic of light, healthy and whole and running perfectly. The second when it gets up and running is the same second that Leo's brain gives out and the metaphors collapse, unceremoniously shoving Leo's conscious thoughts back into his body and pulling his memories back from Piper's until his mind is whole and anchored in the nervous tissue it belongs to. For just a second Leo's eyes flash open, then they roll back in his head and he collapses back into Piper's arms, blood streaming from both their noses, and the last thing he feels is Jason, wrapping his arms around them both.

* * *

Leo's a day late for Christmas, he finds out when he wakes up. But it's okay, because the pile of presents in the corner of the infirmary _have_ to be for him and Piper, which means he didn't miss the best part. Then the _real_ best part happens, when Piper leans over from the chair next to his bed and turns his earbud on, and JARVIS's voice crackles to life. 

Not only did he save JARVIS's life and by extension Tony's, he finds out, but Pepper, and Harley, and _President flipping Obama_ are alive because of him, as well. His laptop's a very crispy piece of toast now, but it's okay, because his Christmas present from Tony is a brand-new one with all of his old data saved, because apparently Tony is an effing _stalker_ who keeps all of their personal data backed up.

* * *

At lunch the next day, Piper's phone rings. She breaks into a grin. 

"What? What is it?" Leo asks, jumping up and speed walking over. Piper smiles, puts the phone on speaker, and answers the call. 

"PIPER _QUINN_ MCLEAN, YOU ARE _GROUNDED_ FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I am ending this chapter there, because it's six thousand words and I am _not_ delaying this chapter any longer.
> 
> Cameos during the Battle of New York include: Various unnamed Hunters of Artemis, Party Ponies, students from the 21st Nome, Camp Half-Blood campers, and half the [wizards](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Wizards) in the New York Metropolitan Area. Canon named characters include Will Solace, Barbara Everette from John Ringo's [Special Circumstances](http://www.johnringo.net/TheLibrary/SpecialCircumstances.aspx) series, Jenkins from [The Librarians](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Librarians_\(2014_TV_series\)), and Laura and Derek Hale, Ken Yukimura, and Araya Calavera from [Teen Wolf](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teen_Wolf_\(2011_TV_series\)). The old man who turns into a mountain lion is a reference to the [Kitty Norville](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitty_Norville) series. The random hydrokinetic Leo runs into isn't from anywhere in particular. 
> 
> Someone determined that Iron Man 3 takes place in December 22-25, 2012. 
> 
> The part where I get really philosophical and start talking about metaphors in Leo's mindspace is from melannen's [Assistance to British Nationals Abroad](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13040856/chapters/29829171). 
> 
> "'Pathic" in this case refers to Piper's telepathy/empathy. 
> 
> In the cave scene, Coach Hedge is there, he's just not mentioned the narration. He _is_ snoring rather loudly, though. 
> 
> I don't know if there's one or two chapters left; it depends on how long everything gets.

**Author's Note:**

> Some headcanons and details that didn't make it in:   
> —Harley Keener is Leo's little brother from The Lost Hero and The Hidden Oracle.   
> —Helena is African-American.   
> —The students of Washington, D. C., have a very well-attended (and fictional!!) study group, including the children of prominent politicians. John and Catherine Grace Sununu are two of Former Senator John E. Sununu's three children. (It took me half an hour to find someone with a recognizable name who had kids around the right age.)  
> —The woman who took care of Leo for most of the time he was homeless is known as Mama Tiger to Houston's homeless population; her kids shorten it to Mama. She's very old, very Russian, and may be Baba Yaga in disguise.   
> —For this reason, Leo spoke Russian long before he ever met Natasha Romanoff.   
> —She's also why Leo knows how to hack: he helped create fake identities for the kids who were about to turn 18, as most of them were legally missing persons. 
> 
> Fic title: "[The Rising](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOm-uIPzqpI)," by Bruce Springsteen.


End file.
